Fancy, the New York company offering image-based web and mobile commerce, is rumored to be in discussions to sell itself for $1 billion to potential suitor eBay. Would eBay (or any buyer) be buying a visual commerce also-ran?
A quick look at App Store data for venture-backed visual commerce apps appears to indicate Fancy has lost any mobile app momentum it once had. The chart below highlights that Fancy‘s mobile app rank has fallen steadily since ascending to the top 50 ‘Lifestyle’ apps late last October to outside the top 500 at the start of this September. Contrast this with competitors like Wanelo, The Hunt and Polyvore in the ‘Lifestyle’ category which have all maintained their share. Pinterest, now valued at $5B, falls in the ‘Social Networking’ category but was included for purposes of comparison. Given the clear loss of momentum, is $1B just fanciful thinking?
Fancy is backed by $78M from high-profile investors like Len Blavatnik, PPR, Jack Dorsey & Will Smith. American Express Ventures, General Catalyst and Allen & Co are also investors. In the company’s last financing round, The Fancy was said to be valued $600 million. At the time of the last financing, Ed Gilligan, the president of American Express, joined Jack Dorsey, CEO of struggling payments startup Square and Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman of Kering on the company’s board.
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