Maju Kuruvilla, who resigned from the role of CEO of the controversial One-Click Checkout Startup Bolt last year, is back. He launches his own startup and focuses on another issue with online shoppers. He calls it “check-in.”
Clicking on an ad like a T-shirt can make the experience afterwards feel a little clunky. The website you land may not even have the product you first clicked on. It bouncing off many shoppers and hurting conversion rates, Kurbila told TechCrunch.
Kurubila wants to change that with AI. His new startup, Spangle AI, creates custom landing pages for shoppers based on what they search or click. It features an AI model called ProductGPT that sells to major retailers looking to improve traffic monetization and deciphers customer interactions.
Seattle-based Spangle AI raised a $6 million seed round last year, telling TechCrunch. The investors include Seattle-based Madrona Venture and streamlined ventures in Silicon Valley.
Spangle AI will join many other e-commerce startups that sell AI to customize your online shopping experience and improve conversions. Vancouver, which sells no-code landing pages, sold Unbounce, which sells Code landing pages in 2020, and Dubai-based Qeen.ai raised $10 million for its smart shopping assistant earlier this month.
It's still early in the Spungeye journey, but the startup claims it is seeing promising signs from its products, which has increased conversion rates by 51% in early testing. Armed with its products and these case studies, Spangle AI says it will focus primarily on sales.
Kurvija was CEO of Bolt for two years and previously worked on Amazon for almost eight years. He replaced Bolt's outspoken co-founder Ryan Breslow in 2022 after Y Combinator against Breslow's fiery Twitter Tirade.
However, it didn't end the Breslow drama after being sued by a Bolt investor with a $30 million personal loan he took from Bolt. Breslow then returned as CEO and defended the loan as a vote of trust for Bolt, and announced that Bolt's legal issues have ended.
I jokingly joking on X and jokingly announced that I had made a “one-click checkout” from Bolt when I left last year, but I look ahead. “I love e-commerce and I love solving difficult problems,” he told TechCrunch.