Whatnot Snaps Up AI Startup Shaped to Supercharge Live Shopping Discovery

Whatnot, the fast-growing livestream shopping app, has acquired Shaped, a machine learning company focused on real-time recommendations and search. The deal, announced Wednesday, aims to sharpen how the platform helps buyers find products as auctions shift by the second and new categories keep piling on.

Unlike standard e-commerce sites with stable catalogs, Whatnot’s marketplace is a live, chaotic bazaar where inventory changes constantly and shows can end in minutes. Shaped’s technology, which combines customer data with large language models, is designed to make recommendations faster and more personal. “Live commerce is a uniquely hard recommendation problem,” said Emmanuel Fuentes, Whatnot’s VP of Data and AI. “Inventory changes by the second, shows start and end continuously, and buyer intent shifts throughout a show.” Whatnot already processes over 500,000 hours of live video weekly to refine suggestions.

Shaped founder Tullie Murrell and nearly a dozen engineers will join Whatnot, with Murrell leading a new Applied AI Research group. The startup previously worked with companies like Outdoorsy and QVC. The acquisition comes as Whatnot hits major milestones: sellers have topped one billion orders, and the company recently raised $225 million at an $11 billion valuation. It added 20 million buyers last year alone.

Whatnot has also expanded aggressively, launching more than 35 new categories in 2024—including art, golf, and vinyl—and over 45 more in the first half of 2025. The move mirrors a broader industry push, with resale giants like eBay and Poshmark racing to embed AI into their platforms.