PlumWillow Raises Seed Funding

PlumWillow, a social shopping site recently raised a seed round of venture funding from Crossbar Capital. The site, which is expected to launch in a couple of months, will feature mulitple brands and allow users to design their own avatars and outfits. While online social shopping is not a novel concept, PlumWillow plans to create competitive positioning by focusing exclusively on teenage girls. PlumWillow will use the expansion capital to fund operations for its first year.

According to CEO Scott Stone, there are over 13 million girls in the company’s target age demographic, and they spend more than $1,000 per year on clothes (a $15 billion market). “Shopping is very social for girls,” Stone told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s an experience. It’s fun. And their friends are an important part of this. For the 5,000 girls with that purple sweater, we can provide rich promotions.”