Mar 13, 2015

Contact author French duo Tatiana Jama and Lara Rouyres have raised €2 Million from Elaia Partners & the New York City fund Conegliano Venture for Selectionnist , a startup  they launched just over a year ago  after leaving Living Social, the couponing company which acquired their first venture, Dealissime. The product, which has been dubbed “Shazam for Magazines,” allows magazine readers to snap photos of any of the 30 magazines that selectionnist currently partners with, via their mobile app, and instantly be redirected to a digital ecommerce site where they can learn more & buy select items. Rouyres and Jama spoke at the Fall 2014 edition of the Paris Founders Event , where they demoed the mobile app for the first time, and spoke of the gap between media players like Elle & Marie Claire, and the eCommerce that their readers ultimately go to to purchase what they see in the magazine. While currently only available in France, Selectionnist partners with many internationally distributed magazines, and this latest fundraising (up until now, Jama & Rouyres had been bootstrapping their venture) will give them the fuel they need to reach the UK, Germany & other markets. Indeed, the timing for their fundraising couldn’t be better. Earlier this month, Shazam announced that they would be extending their famous music-analyzing app to allow users to scan objects as well. While it’s not been specifically stated whether they will go into magazines, Shazam has always had a ‘scan and buy’ business model, whereby the company provides minimal amount of context for the scanned song, along with a call to action to buy said song, or listen to it on a variety of streaming services. This would make eCommerce & magazines a great fit for Shazam. Selectionnist currently counts 40,000 mobile users, 2 million product searches on their web app, and 50,000 products from 5,000 brands integrated into their catalogue spanning four categories: fashion, beauty, design & parenting.