News Summary

Onton, an AI-powered shopping platform previously known as Deft, has successfully raised $7.5 million in a recent funding round led by Footwork, with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures, and others. This new funding brings the company’s total financial backing to approximately $10 million. Onton plans to utilize this investment to expand beyond its initial focus on furniture into new categories such as apparel and consumer electronics. The startup has experienced significant growth, increasing its user base from 50,000 to over 2 million monthly active users. Onton’s core technology employs a neuro-symbolic architecture, which helps eliminate the common hallucination problems associated with large language models, offering more logical search results. This approach allows their AI to better understand consumer needs, such as identifying pet-friendly furniture based on material composition. The company has also introduced features that allow users to upload images or prompts to help find suitable products, enhancing the shopping experience by providing more accurate search results. Onton’s expansion into apparel will place it in competition with companies like Daydream, Aesthetic, and Style.ai. The company has grown its team from three full-time employees in 2023 to ten, with plans to expand to fifteen by hiring additional engineers and researchers.