• Lyst

  Participated · Equity · May 2021

  Lyst is a UK-based fashion portal that aggregates listings from brands and retailers, offering a catalog of 8 million products from 17,000 brands. The company reports 150 million users browsing and buying via its app and website. Lyst said gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2020 was over $500 million and lifetime GMV exceeds $2 billion, with new user numbers growing 1100%. It plans to use the latest funding to continue personalizing the fashion shopping experience and to support partner brands. Lyst has strengthened its executive bench with Mateo Rando joining as chief product officer and Emma McFerran promoted to COO. The company has discussed a potential public listing in London or New York, though a listing is not expected for another year or possibly up to three. Lyst is an online fashion retailer launched in 2010 by CEO Chris Morton that offers a personalized marketplace where users can create a customized shopping feed. The site aggregates products from partnered brands and stores including Saks, Burberry, J.Crew, Lane Crawford and Balenciaga. The company is based in London, UK. In May 2015 Lyst raised $40M in funding. The company said it will use the funds to continue to expand internationally. Lyst aggregates inventory and content from numerous fashion e-commerce sites into a unified shopping experience and a universal shopping cart. The company combines retailer inventory with social and editorial content to improve discovery and provide real-time availability. Lyst plans to expand into brick-and-mortar commerce via a partnership with PayPal around Beacon and expects additional integrations through its API. The new funding will be used to ramp marketing and hire data scientists and engineers to improve its algorithms. Founded in 2010, Lyst reported rapid growth—up 400% in 2012 and 400% again in 2013—and now draws about 2 million monthly shoppers. Operational metrics reported include an average basket size of $300, roughly $60 million in partner sales, an affiliate fee between 7% and 20%, 57% of purchases coming from North America, and aggregation of over $2 billion worth of goods. Lyst aggregates inventory from thousands of brands and retailers and combines that product data with blogs and social content to present tailored selections and "lysts" for users. The service uses algorithms to reorganize content in real time so availability and pricing reflect live retailer data. It integrates editorial and social signals and plans further mobile and offline discovery features next year. Lyst monetizes via an affiliate revenue‑sharing model (7–20% depending on deals) and reports doubling sales each month for the past three months after a redesign. The company says millions visit monthly, it generates "millions of dollars" in quarterly sales, the average order is about $300, and traffic is roughly 40% U.S., 40% Europe, remainder elsewhere. Lyst was launched in April 2011 and operates from New York and London. Lyst provides a social, discovery-oriented platform for high fashion fans that scrapes designer sites, extracts large product images, and structures the data into a taxonomy. It offers a Twitter‑like feed where users can follow people and brands, curate wish lists, and receive purchase‑availability alerts via a Runway tracking feature launched to coincide with London Fashion Week. The startup launched a public Beta in May and says users are now in the "tens of thousands," having doubled in the prior month. Lyst monetizes solely on an affiliate/commission basis—partners pay only when a sale is generated. The product emphasizes adding context and curation to items (friend or editor recommendations) to drive intent and conversions. The team positions the service between mainstream retailers and community sites, aiming to make the high‑fashion market more accessible.

No current team members are available.