Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of tech billionaire Bill Gates, has launched Phia, an AI-powered platform that aims to revolutionize online shopping for secondhand clothing. The platform, which went live on April 24, is the brainchild of Phoebe, 22, and her former Stanford roommate, Sophia Kianni, 23. Phia analyzes market trends and compares them to a database of over 250 million second-hand items from platforms like The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective, ThredUp, StockX, eBay, and Poshmark.
The goal is to become the Booking.com of fashion, offering instant price comparisons for any item that catches a shopper’s fancy. Starting a tech-adjacent business as a young woman with a famous last name comes with its own set of challenges and expectations. Phoebe acknowledges that her family’s name likely helped her access venture capital, investors, and mentors, but she insists that her project stems from genuine passion and hard work.
Growing up in Seattle as the youngest of three siblings, Phoebe spent most summers in Rwanda, actively involved in philanthropy alongside her family. She has been vocal on social and political issues, attending the UN General Assembly with her mother and visiting Rwanda with Partners in Health, a nonprofit supported by the Gates Foundation. Phoebe’s approach to fashion reflects the values her parents instilled.
Comparing fashion prices seamlessly
Her mother, Melinda Gates, emphasized the importance of modesty in their children’s upbringing, comparing it to her own upbringing in a middle-class household. The idea for Phia initially sprang from a pitch the duo created for an entrepreneurship class.
Excited about the idea, they wanted to start immediately, but their mothers opposed it. Phoebe graduated in three years instead of four so that they could move to New York, “where fashion is,” and get started. Her father, Bill Gates, expressed concern over the challenges of breaking into the e-commerce space but provided advice.
Her mother insisted that Phoebe and Sophia raise capital independently, seeing it as a learning opportunity. The duo secured $100,000 from Soma Capital and a $250,000 grant from Stanford, eventually landing $500,000 in venture backing from angel investors. They now have a network of influential female mentors.
Today, Phia employs four full-time engineers, an operations manager, and a designer, all of whom have equity in the company. Revenues come from affiliate links, and one of their proudest features is a price graph that instantly shows users whether the cost of an item is fair, high, or low and whether it will retain its value on the secondary market.
Photo by; Angèle Kamp on Unsplash