Social shopping business Kaboodle has merged with StyleSpot, a fashion publisher and shopping engine. Kaboodle is a subsidiary of Hearst Corporation and StyleSpot is a Los Angeles-based start-up backed by Idealab. Together, both companies will offer content, community and commerce to be distributed everywhere women shop online. Hearst will become the largest shareholder of the combined company as a result of the merger.
Rafi Gordon and Alex Amin, co-founders of StyleSpot, will continue as co-CEOs and oversee the combined company, with Gordon overseeing strategy, operations, business development and sales, and Amin overseeing content, product development, PR and marketing. Steven Chien, chief operating officer of Kaboodle, will report to Gordon. Both StyleSpot.com and Kaboodle.com will continue to operate as individual websites.
Commenting on the merger, Gordon said: “StyleSpot’s distribution platform spans mobile, Web, social and email, and enables the company to deliver personalized product recommendations and compelling, monetizable shopping content very efficiently. Combining Kaboodle’s community with StyleSpot’s content and commerce platform will allow us to reach more women and serve their shopping needs even better than before.”
StyleSpot was founded in 2009 by Gordon and Amin. Both executives have more than 13 years of experience as online entrepreneurs and operators focusing on data aggregation, distribution and monetization. Prior to founding StyleSpot, Gordon and Amin founded Baseline Research, a film and television database company in 1999, which was sold to The New York Times Company in 2006.
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