Spangle AI: Revolutionizing E-commerce with Contextual Shopping Experiences

In a significant development for the e-commerce technology sector, Seattle-based startup Spangle AI has secured a $15 million Series A investment round led by NewRoad Capital Partners, pushing the company’s valuation to $100 million. Founded in 2025 by former Amazon technology leaders Maju Kuruvilla and Fei Wang, Spangle is redefining online retail by enabling merchants to create dynamic, individualized shopping experiences that respond to how customers discover their brands. The investment, which includes participation from Madrona, DNX Ventures, and Streamlined Ventures, brings Spangle’s total funding to $21 million following a $6 million seed round last year. This rapid financial traction underscores the market’s enthusiasm for solutions that bridge the gap between social discovery and e-commerce conversion.

At the heart of Spangle’s innovation is a recognition that traditional e-commerce infrastructure was built for a world where customers directly visited brand websites, but today’s shopping journeys often begin elsewhere. “The problem is that websites are not designed to continue a journey that originated somewhere else,” explains CEO Maju Kuruvilla, who previously served as a vice president at Amazon working on Prime logistics and fulfillment. Spangle’s technology creates instant, tailored storefronts for individual customers based on their entry points—whether they arrive via social media platforms, AI search tools, or autonomous shopping agents. This approach creates continuity between discovery and purchase that traditional static websites can’t deliver. For instance, a shopper clicking through from an Instagram ad might encounter a shopping experience that mimics social browsing patterns, while someone searching specifically for dresses could be presented with a curated page featuring complementary event-related products.

Unlike conventional personalization systems that rely heavily on user identity or purchase history, Spangle focuses on immediate intent and context. Their system, powered by cutting-edge generative AI, analyzes whether a shopper is casually browsing, comparing options, or ready to make a purchase—then dynamically adjusts product selection, layout, and content to match that intent. The technology trains on a retailer’s specific catalog, brand guidelines, and performance data to ensure that all generated experiences remain authentic to the brand’s identity while optimizing for conversion. This contextual approach has proven particularly valuable as privacy changes make traditional tracking more difficult and as shopping increasingly fragments across multiple platforms and entry points. Kuruvilla notes that while retailers have become adept at capturing attention through various channels, converting that attention once shoppers click through remains challenging: “Conversion from all this traffic that’s discovered outside is a huge problem for all these brands.”

The results speak for themselves, with Spangle reporting that its customers have experienced conversion rate improvements of up to 50% and significant gains in return on advertising spend. These impressive metrics have helped the young company secure partnerships with prominent fashion and retail brands including REVOLVE, Steve Madden, and Alexander Wang. In just nine months of operation, Spangle has signed nine enterprise customers, establishing itself as a serious contender in the emerging field of “agentic commerce”—a development that could potentially disrupt established players in the e-commerce personalization space such as Adobe and Mastercard’s Dynamic Yield. The company’s leadership team brings deep industry experience: alongside Kuruvilla (who previously served as CEO and CTO at Bolt and held positions at Microsoft, Honeywell, and Milliman), co-founder and CTO Fei Wang contributed nearly 12 years of engineering experience at Amazon before becoming CTO at Saks OFF 5TH, while COO Karen Moon brings valuable perspective as a longtime investor and former CEO of Trendalytics.

Spangle’s approach represents a fundamental rethinking of the e-commerce experience in an era where the traditional product page may be giving way to more contextual, dynamic interactions. Rather than forcing customers to navigate standardized storefronts designed for direct visitors, Spangle enables retailers to meet shoppers where they are—with experiences that feel like natural extensions of their discovery process. This capability becomes increasingly important as social platforms, AI-powered search tools, and even autonomous shopping agents become more prominent entry points to online shopping. The technology essentially transforms a retailer’s digital presence from a static destination into a responsive environment that adapts in real-time to how customers arrive and what they’re seeking to accomplish.

The emergence of Spangle coincides with broader industry shifts toward more intelligent, adaptive commerce experiences. Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and OpenAI are all developing AI-powered shopping capabilities that aim to make online purchases more intuitive and contextual. Spangle’s focus on the merchant side of this equation—providing retailers with the tools to create these adaptive experiences themselves—positions the company uniquely in this evolving landscape. With fewer than 10 employees currently, Spangle represents a lean, focused approach to solving a specific but critical challenge in modern e-commerce: connecting discovery with conversion in a seamless way that respects both the shopper’s journey and the brand’s identity.

The $15 million investment will likely accelerate Spangle’s product development and market expansion at a critical time when retailers are seeking new ways to improve digital performance amid changing consumer behaviors and increasing competition. As shopping continues to fragment across platforms and attention becomes more difficult to convert, Spangle’s technology addresses a pain point that resonates strongly with brands: how to create meaningful continuity between the moment of discovery and the moment of purchase. If the company can scale its initial success with major fashion retailers to other sectors and smaller merchants, it could represent a significant evolution in how online storefronts function—moving from static presentations to dynamic, contextually aware experiences that adapt in real-time to each shopper’s unique journey and intent.