Malachyte raises $10M to bring Spotify-style recommendations to online stores

In short: Malachyte, a startup founded by three former Spotify employees, raised $10 million to build shopping recommendations that update as you browse.

What happened

Malachyte said it raised $10 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Gradient, with participation from Harpoon Ventures.

The founders, Sidd Motwani, Ian Anderson, and Shivaditya Sinha, previously worked on the systems behind Spotify’s recommendations. TechCrunch reports that their earlier work powered about 90% of Spotify’s recommendations for its 800 million users.

Malachyte is taking a similar idea to online shopping. Instead of relying mostly on past purchases or a logged-in profile, it aims to react to what a shopper is doing right now, like scrolling, searching, and clicking.

For example, Malachyte says a search for “heavy-duty boot” and a couple of clicks on steel-toed boots could quickly move related items like work pants and gloves higher on the page, and push dress shoes down. The company describes its approach as “intent-aware,” meaning it tries to guess what someone is trying to do in that moment, not just what they bought last month.

The company has been building and testing since 2024. Its platform went live in fall 2025 with Fun.com, and since June 2026 it has been available to Shopify merchants through a built-in integration. Larger retailers can connect through an API, which is a standard way for software tools to talk to each other (like a plug that lets two devices connect).

Why it matters

For shoppers, this could mean store pages that feel less generic, especially for first-time visitors. For retailers, it is a bet that acting on in-the-moment signals can help people find what they want faster, similar to how Spotify learns what you want to listen to next.

Source: TechCrunch AI