Phoebe Gates, Phia, and the Price of Proximity

That’s what Phia raised before its product had to prove much of anything.

What it did have was Phoebe Gates: Bill Gates's daughter, generational wealth, and a name people want to stand near.

The app made TIME’s Best Inventions, packed a cap table (investors) with celebrities, and crossed 1.5 million users. Then it got caught taking affiliate credit for sales it didn’t drive.

My DMs and group chats have been a Phia situation room all week, same question on loop: what do you actually think?

This issue of The Digital Runway is a Fashion Tech Case Study from someone who’s spent 20+ years inside beauty, fashion, and tech, and worked both for a startup and with many of them.

Pop the hood and the real theme shows: this was never just about the cookies.

It's about proximity, and a funding culture that rewards almost everything except building a business that makes money.

• What Phia is and how a free plugin makes money

• Cookie stuffing explained in plain English

• The competitive landscape: 7 shopping tools, one chart

• The Celebrity Investors and VCs who funded Phia

• The due diligence questions or lack thereof

• What funding culture rewards, and who pays the tax

Phia is a free browser extension, a plugin that lives in your Chrome or Safari toolbar, plus a phone app. Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni founded it in 2025. While you shop, it price checks the item and surfaces cheaper new or secondhand versions from across the web, so you don’t overpay.

The tagline the founders used was “Google Flights, but for fashion.” Phia also made TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025, so the product itself is real.

• April 2025: Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni launch Phia plus their podcast on Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network both in the same month.

• September 2025: $8M seed round led by Kleiner Perkins.

• January 2026: $35M Series A at a $185M valuation led by Notable Capital.

• May 2026: In a Vogue article, “Is Phoebe Gates’s Phia the Most Celeb-Backed Shopping Startup of All Time?” Phia confirmed roughly $43.5M raised, 1.5 million users, and nearly 10,000 retail partners.

• July 2026: Bloomberg tests the app and finds it overwriting other affiliates’ codes at checkout. TechCrunch reports Phia is suspended from Impact.com. Phia says a December code bug caused it, and Bloomberg confirms it’s fixed.

  

A cookie is a small file a website drops in your browser to remember things, including who sent you. When a creator’s affiliate link sends you to a store and you buy, a cookie tells the retailer the sale came from her, and she earns a commission.

Cookie stuffing is when a browser tool jams its own cookie in front of hers, so the retailer credits it instead. Your price doesn’t change. The only thing that moves is who gets paid.

You as a customer don’t lose a cent. The creator whose link actually made the sale loses the commission.

Phia takes a cut of the sales that go through its extension. You shop, Phia points you to a cheaper version, you buy, then Phia earns the affiliate commission.

Which is why cookie stuffing isn’t a random glitch here.

Phia only makes money when it gets the credit for a sale. Taking credit for a sale that it didn’t drive is not only unethical but is it legal?

The legal question is already live. Honey is facing more than 25 class actions for allegedly doing the same thing, Capital One settled its version for about $4 million this year, and Impact.com already suspended Phia.

🔑 Unlock the full Case Study: the competitive landscape, the 30+ names (you probably know) who funded Phia, the due diligence that should have been done, and who actually pays the tax when a hyped startup fails.