Chums raises $3.5 million to focus on social shopping

Chums, which focuses on social shopping, announced it has raised $3.5 million ahead of YC’s demo day, TechCrunch reported .

Chums is a startup that provides social shopping services , allowing users to follow the types of products they might want to buy and recommend items to each other that might meet their friends' needs. Users can earn commissions by recommending products , and Chums will take a cut of the commissions .

Noah Elion, one of the founders of Chums , mentioned that his company raised $ 1 million in December , after which the startup's stock attracted so much interest that Chums ' next round of fundraising was $1 million more than its $1.5 billion target . That is, Chums has raised a total of $3.5 million in two pre-seed rounds .

Elion said the $1.5 million goal was based on how much money his company would need over the next 18 months. The money ultimately raised came from Ludlow , Shrug , Contrary Capital and Fuel Capital, as well as other firms and individuals.

However, as Elion noted, the app was launched 3 weeks ago . When asked about early traction, Elion said that while the team has seen “encouraging” levels of engagement, it’s too early to say too much.

Currently, the startup consists of four people . Elion and Dick   Fickling ( an early engineer at Honey) founded Charms’ predecessor, “Chums Referral,” with a team that included Lauren Williams (engineering director) and Lena Gasilina (product) , former colleagues of Fickling’s .

After that, the team plans to hire a designer and front-end developer, and plans to keep the team of six until the next round of financing .

When talking about the development of Chums, Elion believes that Google 's search is too gamified , while Amazon is suitable for users who know exactly what products they are looking for . In Elion's opinion , people like shopping malls because of their diverse content and spontaneous shopping space. Chums may be able to meet this demand of users and create a niche market .

As a startup focusing on social shopping, let us wait and see what kind of development Chums will achieve in the future.

Chums

Social Shopping

Financing