Persi closes £660,000 funding round to repair 'broken' e-commerce personalisation

Fashion tech start-up Persi has closed a £660,000 pre-seed fundraising round that was twice oversubscribed, as it sets out to repair what it calls the "broken" state of online personalisation with AI "that understands real people, not just data".

Institutional B2B investor Haatch and ESM Investments led the raise, while the final £50,000 was deliberately reserved for female angel investors in recognition of Persi’s strong female demographic.

Persi founder and Chief Executive Olivia Parkes, a former brand and marketing strategist for leading fashion retailers, created Persi after concluding that the industry’s data-driven recommendation engines were failing to meet consumers’ real needs.

She believes that existing systems simply recycle a customer’s past clicks and purchases, or offer items favoured by "people like them," which often aren’t relevant.

In direct response, the AI being implemented by Persi first learns the context of each individual, including what is already hanging in their wardrobe, how they define their personal style, even the events looming in their calendar, before suggesting products that "genuinely complement those realities".

Parkes said: "Right now, online personalisation isn’t personal - it's just noise. Online personalisation should feel like advice from a trusted stylist, not a desperate sales pitch. When you start with the person instead of the product feed, everything changes.”
According to Parkes, the stakes for retailers are high, as acquisition costs continue to climb, conversion rates keep slipping and, in the UK last year, online fashion returns reached 50%.

Traditional recommendation software is "trapped inside a single merchant’s transactional silo” and cannot grasp the nuances of style or the reasons someone might, or might not, buy a garment. The result is “irrelevant recommendations, frustrated shoppers and eroding unit economics".

Persi’s answer is a more sustainable discovery engine that plugs effortlessly into any e-commerce site, analyses consumer uploads and multiple data points, and returns suggestions that resonate with true personal taste.

In a consumer trial with 42 paying users and a B2B pilot on the rental platform Hirestreet, Persi delivered 90% style match accuracy, 40% click through on recommended items and 100% customer satisfaction.

Isabella West, Hirestreet’s Chief Executive, said Persi’s technology "aligns perfectly with our mission to build loyalty through value added services".

The fresh capital is allowing Persi to expand its team, with Chief Product and Technology Officer Matthew Deakins now joining Parkes and Chair Sue Cherrie as Persi launches its plug-and-play SaaS solution for fashion retailers.

It is also deepening its AI capabilities through a research partnership with the University of Stirling, as well as accelerating its ‘go to market initiatives’ and brand partnerships.

Sally-Anne Newson, Chief Customer Officer at Reiss, and now investor and advisor to Persi, said: "Persi’s obsession about bringing the consumer and their behaviours into the heart of the personalisation experience is something that will bring real value to the consumer and the retailer.

"I’m delighted to be part of their journey and support them as they scale their retailer pipeline."

Parkes added: "Our vision is simple. Online shopping should be fully personalised, intuitive and human centred. Closing this round with such a remarkable group of sector savvy investors is the momentum we need to make that vision real."