Live streaming shopping app Anything announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Shapeda machine learning company specializing in real-time search and recommendation systems. The deal is intended to strengthen Whatnot’s discovery and personalization capabilities as the platform continues to expand into new product categories and millions of shoppers.
According to the company, the acquisition helps Whatnot continue its investment in artificial intelligence as it seeks to solve one of live commerce’s biggest challenges: helping shoppers find the right products while inventory, auctions and shopper demand change in real time.
Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms, where product listings remain relatively static, Whatnot’s marketplace is constantly evolving, and live auctions can end in minutes or last for hours.
“By combining Shaped’s technology with Whatnot’s existing systems, we can make recommendations faster, more responsive and more personalized,” Emmanuel Fuentes, vice president of data and AI at Whatnot, told TechCrunch. “That speed matters because live commerce is a unique proposition problem. Inventory changes by the second, shows start and end constantly, and buyer intent changes during a show.”
Fuentes said the company has spent the past six years improving the speed of its recommendation engine, reducing recommendation latency from about a day to just minutes. The integration of Shaped’s technology is expected to push these recommendations even closer to real-time. The company says its systems process more than 500,000 hours of live video and millions of real-time interactions each week, using that data to continually improve recommendations.
Founded to help businesses build AI-powered recommendation systems, Shaped has developed technology that combines existing customer data with large language models and machine learning to deliver highly personalized search and discovery experiences. Her client roster included the likes of Outdoorsy and QVC.
As part of the acquisition, Shaped founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with nearly a dozen AI engineers and researchers, will join Whatnot. Murrell will lead the company’s newly formed Applied AI Research team. (Notably, Murrell worked at Meta before starting Shaped.)
The acquisition comes as Whatnot is experiencing significant growth. The company was recently launched in 2019 was revealed that sellers have surpassed one billion orders. Earlier this year, Whatnot raised 225 million dollars in Series F funding, giving the company a valuation of more than $11 billion after adding 20 million buyers over the past year.
Whatnot has also expanded its market significantly, launching more than 35 new categories last year — including art, golf and vinyl — and more than 45 additional categories in the first half of 2025, with new subcategories continuing to roll out every month.
Additionally, the move comes as retail giants scramble to integrate AI across their platforms, such as eBay and Poshmark.
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