Fancy, the Pinterest rival that lets people buy directly from its website, is gearing up for some big business with a new $ 26.4 million fundraising round, according to an SEC filing Monday. It’s unclear who is exactly participating in the round, though American Express vice chairman Ed Gilligan is listed as new board member.
Fancy has had no shortage of big-name backers, including Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and French luxury conglomerate PPR. And, if American Express is on board, it would be mean even more momentum for the social shopping and discovery site. Michael Silverman, COO of Thing Daemon, the company behind Fancy, declined to comment, saying CEO and founder Joe Einhorn was in an evacuation zone because of Hurricane Sandy.
Fancy launched in February, giving people the ability to “fancy” items that they like, similar to the way people pin products on Pinterest. But Fancy’s special sauce is its trove of product data, which it matches to fancied items. Fancy then lets users buy many of the products directly through its website.
The site has been rumored to be a possible acquisition target for Apple. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg also became a user in June. But with the new funding, it looks like Fancy is set on staying independent at least for the near future. The company raised $ 10 million last year and previously raised $ 6 million in 2010.
Here’s a video we did with Einhorn when Fancy launched in February:
Watch this video for free on GigaOM
