Bill Gates' Daughter Raises $30M for AI App Built in Stanford Dorm

Phoebe Gates Launches AI-Powered Shopping Platform with $30 Million in New Funding

Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, has successfully raised $30 million for her artificial intelligence-powered shopping platform, Phia. The startup, co-founded by Gates and her Stanford University classmate Sophia Kianni, has quickly gained attention from high-profile investors, including Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner, former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Spanx founder Sara Blakely.

The recent funding round, confirmed by a company spokesperson to Bloomberg, values the New York-based firm at $180 million. This is a significant increase from the $8 million Phia raised in September, showcasing the growing interest in the company’s innovative approach to online shopping.

Gates and Kianni first explored generative AI during a Stanford class that encouraged students to think about real-world applications. Initially, they considered a concept for a "Bluetooth tampon," but eventually shifted their focus to a shared frustration as roommates: the challenges of online shopping, such as endless tabs, inconsistent prices, and lack of transparency.

A $250,000 grant from a Stanford social entrepreneurship program allowed them to pursue the project full time and relocate to New York. Gates told Elle that when she first introduced the idea to her parents, they advised her to keep it as a side project. She followed this advice by enrolling in Stanford's night program after moving to New York and completing her degree in 2024.

"They were like, 'Okay, you can do this as a side thing, but you need to stay in school.' I don't think people would expect that from my family, to be honest," she said. Her father, Bill Gates, dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to start Microsoft.

Kianni also paused her studies temporarily to gain more knowledge about the industry they were entering. She told Vogue that this decision was crucial for their success.

While Bill Gates has not invested in the company, he has publicly supported its mission. Phia positions itself as a solution to what it calls a broken online shopping experience, where customers waste time searching for deals or specific items while brands often target the wrong audience.

The AI-powered search engine, available as an app and browser extension for Chrome and Safari, aggregates listings from over 40,000 retail and resale sites. This allows users to compare prices, find real-time deals, and determine if an item's cost is typical, high, or fair. The tool has already reached 750,000 downloads in just eight months.

Gates emphasized the importance of secondhand shopping on the platform. "There are enough clothes on the planet for the next six generations," she said. "We don't need to buy new clothes. The rise in secondhand fashion is really exciting. We just need to make it a lot easier for consumers."

At 23, Gates now leads a rapidly evolving product with fewer than a dozen full-time employees. She and Kianni aim to build a true end-to-end AI shopping assistant that can anticipate users' needs and deliver personalized recommendations.

"We're building what we wish existed when we were in college," Gates told Vogue.

Beyond Phia, Gates expressed her desire to invest in other women founders, noting that only 2% of venture capital funding goes to women. "That's criminal," she said.