Beyond Phoebe Gates’ Phia: 5 female-owned fashion-tech apps to have on your radar

Female tech entrepreneurship is a rapidly growing field, but not all female founders, it seems, are shown equal treatment. That’s why Phoebe Gates, the 24-year-old daughter of now-divorced Bill and Melinda Gates, made headlines this summer as controversy surfaced over her AI-powered shopping app Phia, which she launched with her former Stanford University classmate Sophia Kianni just last year. Phia was, for all intents and purposes, a huge success story upon launch – the start-up counted Khloé Kardashian, Karlie Kloss, Eileen Gu, Sydney Sweeney, Paris Hilton, Hailey Bieber and even LVMH scion Alexandre Arnault as investors and boasted nearly 10,000 retail partners. The app and browser extension tool works by scanning the internet as you shop online to find alternative links at Phia’s affiliate partners to purchase whatever item you’re looking at, be it the same item at a discount or a similar version of the item being sold second-hand. Phia uses these affiliate commissions to make money, taking a cut of all purchases made using its extension. This July, however, Bloomberg reported that Phia had been claiming affiliate commissions on sales it did not actually drive, a fraudulent practice commonly referred to as “cookie stuffing” because it involves tracking the usage of unauthorised cookies, or small data files, stored in an individual’s web browser. The Phia extension claimed commissions from various retailers even in cases where the sale wasn’t necessarily completed by the shopper and overrode legitimate referrals from other external sites. In the weeks since the story first broke, Phia has continued to deny any intentional malpractice, first attributing the “cookie stuffing” to a bug, which it later claimed to have resolved, adding that it would reverse any misattributed transactions for affected brand partners. Bloomberg further reported on leaked messages that showed Phia’s founders may have been aware of, and actively pushing, “cookie stuffing” practices for months, a narrative a Phia representative later denied. And leaked internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg showed that average daily revenue at Phia has dropped significantly since those practices were exposed and disabled. Neither Gates nor Kianni has been charged with any crimes, though in the United States “cookie stuffing” could constitute wire fraud with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison plus fines. Controversy aside, the Phia scandal has also shone the spotlight on other female founders who are hustling to make their mark in the same space, perhaps without the Gates legacy and “cookie stuffing” allegations to their names. Some, like Kristine Locker of the shopping app Locker, have even alleged they were building products similar to Phia around the same time, only to be denied capital by several of the same investors, according to Forbes. Here are five fashion tech apps – and the women who built them – you should have on your radar right now. 1. Indyx by Yidi Campbell View this post on Instagram A post shared by Indyx | Your Digital Wardrobe (@myindyx) Former investment banker and retail industry veteran Yidi Campbell, who previously held strategy and operations positions at Gap Inc. and Athleta, launched the digital closet app Indyx in 2022, with the help of her co-founder and now head of growth, Devon Rule. Today Indyx is more than just a digital wardrobe; through the app, users can also book on-demand professional styling services. 2. SSQRD by Nabihah Ahmad Nabihah Ahmad started building her start-up, SSQRD (pronounced S-Squared), while still an undergraduate at Columbia University. SSQRD, a global shopping search engine, seeks to build the world’s largest e-commerce repository. But perhaps more importantly, Ahmad aims to use the SSQRD directory to highlight independent brands from around the world that would otherwise struggle to stand out above the noise: users can filter for Black-owned brands, sustainable ones and much more. 3. By Rotation by Eshita Kabra-Davies Investment manager Eshita Kabra-Davies first launched her clothing rental service By Rotation as a side hustle in 2019, and says she was inspired to do so after seeing the plethora of textile waste on a honeymoon visit to her home country of India. By Rotation proclaims to be the UK’s first social fashion rental app, operating on a peer-to-peer business model. Despite competition from American rental pioneer Rent the Runway and the Urban Outfitters-owned upstart platform Nuuly, By Rotation expanded into the US in 2023. 4. Selleb by Chloe and Claire Lee Ever wondered what the world’s coolest people are actually buying? Sisters Chloe and Claire Lee came up with the idea for their receipt-sharing app, Selleb, after spending their teenage years blogging about their own favourite finds and purchases, fine-tuning their personal taste, so to speak – and later developing a devoted following on fashion resale marketplace Poshmark. Selleb, which is still invite-only, allows users to see what other members of the app’s curated community are actually spending their money on rather than blindly following recommendations online. You can read users’ unfiltered reviews of purchases, too, from luxury clothing items to a meal at one of New York’s most hyped restaurants. 5. Daydream by Julie Bornstein View this post on Instagram A post shared by Daydream (@daydream) Like Phia, Daydream is also an AI-powered shopping app which profits off commissions, but its user experience is more akin to ChatGPT than anything. Powered by multiple AI models, including OpenAI, Google Gemini and various open-source tools, Daydream is a conversational shopping engine and assistant. It’s also not founder Julie Bornstein’s first excursion into the tech space – the former chief operating officer and board member of Stitch Fix, an online personal styling service, is an e-commerce veteran who helped launch American department store Nordstrom’s website all the way back in 1999. She also founded a venture-backed fashion recommendation app called The Yes, which was later acquired by Pinterest.

Beyond Phoebe Gates’ Phia: 5 female-owned fashion-tech apps to have on your radar

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}From Indyx and By Rotation to SSQRD, these apps help you organise your wardrobe, rent clothes and discover indie brands at the tap of a button

From Indyx and By Rotation to SSQRD, these apps help you organise your wardrobe, rent clothes and discover indie brands at the tap of a button