"There felt like there was this giant white space for, like, what should we actually buy, and why doesn't everyone have a personal shopper in their pocket?"
"If you're looking at a $500 handbag on Phia, you can quickly understand, can you resell that item for $300 or $400? Or, on the contrary, if it's a fast-fashion piece and you're buying it for $100 bucks, is it only reselling for $10? Does it immediately depreciate and lose 90% of its value?"
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni founded Phia after meeting as Stanford roommates and drawing on personal e-commerce frustrations. The startup began as a class project and launched publicly after finding product–market fit. Phia provides a browser extension and app that compares prices across new and second-hand listings, integrating with over 150 second-hand platforms and a search index of more than 350 million items. The service emphasizes sustainability and cost savings, noting second-hand purchases can reduce carbon footprint by about 80% compared with buying new. Phia displays resale-value estimates and is developing an AI shopping advisor to evaluate deals, predict retained value, and estimate fit using past orders and returns.
Read at TechCrunch
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