San Francisco, CA – Today Stitch Fix, the shopping experience that provides women with the luxury of personal styling delivered right to their door, announced that it has raised a $12 million round of Series B funding, led by Benchmark. The round caps off a year of incredible growth for the company and combined with the additions of world-class retail talent will help Stitch Fix continue to scale to meet the demands of its growing client base.
“We are traditionally cautious about investing in fashion or e-commerce businesses, but Stitch Fix has created an exceptional model set to rival traditional retail,” said Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark. “Using client data and algorithms, Katrina and her team have grown a powerhouse retail business that delivers the right merchandise at the right time – it’s the kind of organic growth and margin efficiency that we’ve seen before in companies like Yelp, Zillow, and eBay.”
In addition to the funding, Stitch Fix today announced three key leadership hires, each with extensive retail experience:
- Lisa Bougie, former general manager of emerging markets for Nike, joins Stitch Fix as chief merchandising officer
- Meredith Dunn, former senior director customer and stylist delight at Stella & Dot, joins as vice president of styling
- Jennifer Olsen, former chief marketing officer at Crate and Barrel, joins as chief marketing officer
Existing board members Julie Bornstein of Sephora and founding investor Steve Anderson of Baseline Ventures will be joined by three key additions with deep experience in company building at scale. The new board members are:
- Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark, an early investor in eBay, Nordstrom.com, and Twitter
- Marka Hansen, former president of North America for Gap, Inc. and Banana Republic
- John Fleming, former EVP and chief merchandising officer of Walmart and CEO of Walmart.com
“We are incredibly excited to welcome Bill and Benchmark to the Stitch Fix team, and to use this funding to continue to scale and meet our enormous demand,” said Stitch Fix CEO and founder Katrina Lake. “With the additions of Bill, John and Marka to our board, and Lisa, Jennifer and Meredith to our executive team, we have a leadership team that’s unparalleled in the retail industry.”
Stitch Fix has married the best of styling and technology to create a better way to shop. Using a combination of proprietary styling algorithms and the human touch of trained stylists, Stitch Fix ships five hand-selected items to its clients to try on in the comfort and convenience of their own homes, with their own existing wardrobes. By leveraging customer data and feedback, Stitch Fix has created a client-centric retail model that leverages over 500M data points to create a unique and personalized shopping experience.
About Stitch Fix:
Founded in 2011, Stitch Fix is the premiere online personal shopping platform, introducing the world of personal styling to women throughout the country at an accessible price point. Combining the art and science of fashion, Stitch Fix has built a suite of proprietary tools and style-matching technology used by the company’s expert styling team to identify the clothes and styles that best fit each client’s taste, budget and lifestyle. Clients receive Stitch Fix deliveries of five hand-selected garments to try in the comfort of their homes, keep what they like and return what they don’t. Stitch Fix’s headquarters and warehouse are based in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, visit www.stitchfix.com.
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