Three former Spotify engineers have raised $10 million in seed funding for Malachyte, a startup that aims to bring AI-powered personalisation to online retail.
The company was founded by Sidd Motwani, Ian Anderson and Shivaditya Sinha, who previously helped build Spotify’s recommendation technology. Their goal is to apply a similar approach to e-commerce by predicting what shoppers want in real time rather than relying on purchase history or demographic profiles.
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Beyond Traditional Recommendations
Malachyte’s platform analyses browsing behaviour as customers interact with an online store, using signals such as searches, clicks, scrolling and items added to a cart to continuously refine recommendations.
According to Chief Executive Sidd Motwani, the system begins building a customer profile from the moment a page loads and becomes more accurate as the shopping session progresses. That allows retailers to personalise product rankings even for first-time visitors without requiring an account or previous purchases.
The company also considers contextual factors, such as the device being used or how a customer arrived at the website, to better understand purchasing intent.
Expansion Plans
Founded in 2024, Malachyte tested its technology with more than 20 enterprise customers across retail, travel and grocery before focusing on e-commerce.
The platform launched with Fun.com in late 2025 and has been available to Shopify merchants since June through a native integration, while larger retailers can access it via an API.
The $10 million seed round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Gradient, with participation from Harpoon Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the company’s commercial operations, strengthen product development and accelerate growth.
