Whatnot acquires AI startup Shaped to accelerate live commerce recommendations
The acquisition of Shaped, led by founder Tullie Murrell, supports Whatnot’s $11 billion valuation and its push to reduce recommendation latency in a rapidly shifting inventory environment.
Livestream shopping platform Whatnot has acquired AI startup Shaped to enhance its real-time product recommendation and search capabilities. The move aims to strengthen the platform’s personalization and discovery features as it continues to expand into new product categories and serve millions of buyers. Shaped specialises in machine learning for dynamic inventory environments, combining customer data with large language models to address the unique challenges of live commerce.
Unlike traditional e-commerce, where product catalogs remain relatively stable, Whatnot’s marketplace is in constant flux, with inventory and buyer demand shifting by the second. Live auctions can conclude within minutes or extend for hours, requiring a recommendation engine that can adapt instantly. Emmanuel Fuentes, Whatnot’s VP of Data and AI, stated that integrating Shaped’s technology will make recommendations faster and more responsive, solving one of the sector’s most difficult technical hurdles.
Whatnot has spent the past six years reducing its recommendation latency from roughly a day to just minutes. The company currently processes more than 500,000 hours of live video and millions of real-time interactions weekly, using this data to continuously refine its algorithms. The acquisition of Shaped is expected to push these capabilities closer to real-time, allowing the platform to better match shopper intent with available inventory as it changes during live shows.
Shaped founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with approximately a dozen engineers and AI researchers, will join Whatnot to lead a newly formed Applied AI Research group. Murrell, who previously worked at Meta before founding Shaped, will oversee the integration of the startup’s technology. Shaped’s previous clients included Outdoorsy and QVC, indicating a track record in building AI-powered recommendation systems for diverse retail environments.
The acquisition follows significant growth for Whatnot, which recently surpassed one billion orders. Earlier this year, the company raised $225 million in Series F funding, valuing the business at over $11 billion after adding 20 million buyers in the past year. Whatnot has also broadened its marketplace significantly, launching more than 35 new categories last year, including art, golf, and vinyl, and adding over 45 additional categories in the first half of 2025.
This strategic move places Whatnot in direct competition with resale giants such as eBay and Poshmark, which are also racing to integrate AI throughout their platforms. While the financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, the deal underscores Whatnot’s commitment to leveraging artificial intelligence to maintain its edge in the evolving live commerce sector.
