Gander, an LA Startup Using Videos To Make Online Shopping Easier, Raises $4M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Gander, an LA Startup Using Videos To Make Online Shopping Easier, Raises $4M

Gander, a Los Angeles-based ecommerce startup that collects and embeds user-generated videos for online shopping sites, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding.


Two New York-based venture capital firms, Harlem Capital and Crossbeam Venture Partners, co-led the round and were joined by the Boon Fund and a collection of venture scouts and angel investors, TechCrunch reported Thursday. The new funding will go toward scaling the company and growing its sales and engineering teams.

Gander founder Kimiloluwa Fafowora.

Gander founder Kimiloluwa Fafowora.

Image courtesy of Gander

Gander was launched in 2021 by Kimiloluwa Fafowora, who just graduated from the Stanford Graduate School of Business this spring and has now joined the select ranks of Black female founders to have raised more than $1 million in venture capital funding. The startup was able to close the seed round in less than three months, Fafowora told TechCrunch.

Inspired by Fafowora’s own experiences as an online shopper, Gander collects user-generated videos of products and plugs them into retail sites, giving shoppers a better idea of what that product looks like in real life.

“A lot of the elements that are really helpful for bringing products to life don’t really exist online,” Fafowora told TechCrunch. “We’ve built our product in such a way that we get important data that will help ecommerce brands just humanize their stores in a way that makes them accessible as possible. That helps the customer feel happy as possible for shopping.”

After exploding during the pandemic, online shopping sales have continued to climb this year. U.S. ecommerce retail sales totaled an estimated $231.4 billion on a non-adjusted basis in the first quarter of 2022—up 6.7% from the same period last year, according to the Department of Commerce.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

Cadence

FIGS Wins Lawsuit Against Them For 'False Advertising'

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

​FIGS model showing off scrubs
Courtesy of FIGS

Scrubs maker FIGS gained a win in court this week after a jury found there was no merit to the false advertising and misleading business practices claims brought by rival medical apparel maker Strategic Partners Inc. (SPI).

Read moreShow less

This Week in ‘Raises’: Zest AI Snags $50M, Kingswood Capital Collects $500M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Zest AI Snags $50M, Kingswood Capital Collects $500M
Modified by Joshua Letona

Online financial platform Zest AI raised fresh funding to continue expanding access to AI-automated credit underwriting for all lenders. While cybersecurity products developer MedCrypt landed more funding to scale its cryptography, behavior monitoring, and vulnerability inventory products across various types of medical devices.

***

Read moreShow less

LA Tech ‘Moves’: ABC Signature Gains New SVP

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: ABC Signature Gains New SVP
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

***

Read moreShow less
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending