Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer refuses to sit on the sidelines of the generative AI revolution.
After running his photo-sharing and contact management startup Sunshine for the past six years with little success, the celebrated technology leader has shut down the company and launched Dazzle, a new startup focused on building the next generation of AI personal assistants.
Mayer hasn't yet shared details about Dazzle's capabilities, but he did reveal that the company has raised an $8 million seed round at a $35 million valuation. The round was led by Forerunner's Kirsten Green with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Greycroft, Offline Ventures, Slow Ventures, and Bling Capital. Mayer acknowledged investing his own money in the startup, but emphasized that the round was led by Green, a venture capitalist with a proven track record of identifying iconic consumer brands such as Warby Parker, Chime, and Dollar Shave Club.
Green's investment signals that Dazzle is poised for a new wave of AI-enabled consumer businesses. The Forerunner Ventures founder previously told TechCrunch that while enterprise AI took the early lead in this technology cycle, consumer AI is a “late bloomer” and is finally ready to break out.
Even with Mayer's reputation as a founder, having Green as a lead investor is an important sign of Dazzle's credibility, especially after Sunshine was widely considered a failure.
“I think she has a really good sense of where people and the platform are going,” Mayer said.
Mayer told TechCrunch that the Sunshine team started prototyping Dazzle last summer, but the project quickly eclipsed its previous work in ambition and opportunity.
“We realized this is something we're much more excited about,” she said, noting that Dazzle has the potential to have “a much bigger impact” than what Sunshine was building.
Originally founded as Lumi Labs in 2018, Sunshine first released a subscription app for contact management called “Sunshine Contacts.” Despite the founder's high profile, the product struggled to gain traction. Privacy advocates raised alarm over the app's practice of pulling home addresses from public databases to enrich its contact list, but the company never recovered from its initial skepticism.
By 2024, the company has expanded its offerings by adding event management and AI-powered photo sharing tool Shine. The new product was widely criticized for its outdated design and similarly failed to attract widespread use.
Sunshine has raised a total of $20 million from investors including Felicis, Norwest Venture Partners, and Unusual Ventures. Meyer said investors received 10% of Dazzle's stock when the company was dissolved.
Reflecting on Sunshine's struggles, Mayer was candid about its limitations, admitting that the problems the company was tackling were too “mundane” and not big enough. “I don't think it's reached the state of overall sophistication and accessibility that I really wanted,” she added.
Meyer is now confident that the lessons learned from Sunshine will help him build a more resilient and impactful business with Dazzle.
Before becoming Yahoo CEO, Mayer was employee number 20 at Google, where he helped design the “look and feel” of Google Search and oversaw the development of Google Maps and AdWords.
“I had the rare privilege of working for two companies that profoundly changed the way people work,” Mayer told TechCrunch. “For many people, Yahoo defined the Internet. When it came to search and maps, Google changed everything. I would love to create a product with that kind of impact again.”
Dazzle plans to come out of stealth mode early next year. Its website, dazzle.ai, is currently password protected and public access is blocked.