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Venture Capital News: The Hunt Announces $5.5M Series A Financing

2013-11-25
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, First community-driven online shopping experience that makes photos shoppable has closed a $5.5 million Series A round of funding, led by Javelin Venture Partners.
The Hunt, the first community-driven online shopping experience that makes photos shoppable, is making it even easier to shop for items found in photos with the debut of its first ever app for iPhone. The Hunt brings an innovative approach to shopping with the ability to spot style trends on the street, or on social media, and share a photo of this with a like-minded community that will hunt down and recommend exact or similar items that match the look and fit your budget. Users can now get the best of The Hunt while on the go, by starting hunts from their iPhone camera and - in real time - will receive suggestions from the community on where to buy the item and how to style it.

'The nature of how consumers discover the products, looks and trends they want to wear and buy is rapidly shifting to user-generated photos - but it's nearly impossible to get the look seen in a photo, especially while staying in your budget,' said Tim Weingarten, Co-Founder and CEO of The Hunt. 'We now cater to the increasing amount of mobile shoppers and provide a service where our community comes together to style each other's outfits, enabling our members to receive fashion advice while paying it forward by solving other's shopping related quests, while on the go.'

Additionally, in less than one year since launch, The Hunt has closed a $5.5 million Series A round of funding, led by Javelin Venture Partners. The funding will be used to continue hiring engineers and product designers, among other investments.
'We're passionate about investing in bold and unique companies, like The Hunt, that are focused on solving a major pain-point for consumers by developing highly engaging, novel consumer experiences, with a sense of community,' said Alex Gurevich, Partner at Javelin Venture Partners. 'We're excited to partner with The Hunt and participate in the future growth and development of this new approach to shopping and styling.'
The Hunt has driven over three million visits to third party e-commerce sites since launch, with a 1.5%-1.75% conversion rate to purchase on these visits, proving that users visit The Hunt with the intent to shop. On average a user will visit two e-commerce sites per session, including 30% of member visits and 16% of non-member visits leading to a referral to a third party e-commerce site.

The Hunt app is designed for iOS7 and available to download for free from the App Store on iPhone at www.thehunt.com/iphone.

About TheHunt.com
The Hunt is the first community-driven online shopping experience that makes it easy and fun to shop for the things you see in photos and on sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. The Hunt is an evolution in online shopping and solves shopper's foremost pain point when browsing these sites: where to purchase this item, where to find something similar to or less expensive than that item and how to style it. Based in San Francisco and co-founded by tech entrepreneurs Tim Weingarten and Simon Peck, the company is an early-stage startup that has raised $5.5M in funding led by Javelin Venture Partners.

Distinguished investors in the company include fashion icon Tyra Banks, actor and investor Ashton Kutcher and partner Guy Oseary, Co-founders of AGR-ade Investments, Rohan Oza, former Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola Company's still coke brands and Founder of Idea Merchants Capital, RedOne, the Grammy winning producer behind Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, Keli Lee, EVP of Casting for ABC Entertainment Group and Anjula Acharia-Bath, CEO of A-Series Entertainment, among others. For more information, please visit www.thehunt.com.
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