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Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo, refuses to sit on the sidelines of the generative AI revolution.
After spending the last six years running sunrisea photo-sharing and contact management startup with little success, is what the technology leader has achieved closed The company will launch Dazzle, a new startup focused on building the next generation of AI personal assistants.
While Mayer has yet to share details about Dazzle’s functionality, she did reveal that the company has raised an $8 million seed round at a $35 million valuation. The round was led by Kirsten Green of Forerunner, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Greycroft, Offline Ventures, Slow Ventures and Bling Capital. Although Mayer acknowledged investing her own capital in the startup, she emphasized that the round was led by Green, a venture capitalist with a record of identifying popular consumer brands like Warby Parker, Chime, and Dollar Shave Club.
Green’s investment suggests Dazzle is ready to A wave is coming Of the new consumer companies infused with artificial intelligence. The Forerunner Ventures founder previously told TechCrunch that while enterprise AI took the lead early in this technology cycle, consumer-facing AI is a “late boom” that is finally ready to break through.
Even for the famous founder of Mayer, the selection of Green as a lead investor represents an important stamp of Dazzle’s credibility, especially after Sunshine was widely considered a failure.
“I think she really has a great sense of where people and platforms are going,” Mayer said.
Mayer told TechCrunch that the Sunshine team began prototyping Dazzle last summer, a project that quickly eclipsed their previous work in terms of ambition and opportunity.
“We realized this was something we were much more passionate about,” she said, noting that Dazzle had the potential to make a “much bigger impact” than Sunshine was building.
Originally founded as Lumi Labs in 2018, Sunshine first launched with a contact management subscription app called “Sunshine Contacts.” Despite its founder’s fame, the product has struggled to gain traction. Privacy advocates have raised alarms about the app Practice pulling home addresses From public databases to enrich contact lists, the company never recovered from initial skepticism.
By 2024, the company has expanded its offerings by Add event management and “Shine” An AI-powered photo sharing tool. The new display was widely criticized for its outdated design and similarly failed to attract widespread use.
Sunshine has raised a total of $20 million from investors, including Felicis, Norwest Venture Partners and Unusual Ventures. When the company dissolved, investors received 10% of Dazzle’s shares, Mayer said.
Reflecting on Sunshine’s struggles, Mayer was frank about its limitations, admitting that the problems the company was tackling were too “mundane” and not big enough. “I don’t think we got to the state of overall polish and accessibility that I really wanted,” she added.
Mayer is now betting that the lessons learned from Sunshine will help her build a more resilient and impactful business with Dazzle.
Before taking over as CEO of Yahoo, Mayer was Google’s 20th employee, where she helped design the “look and feel” of Google Search and oversaw the development of Google Maps and AdWords.
“I had the rare privilege of being at two companies that really changed the way people do things,” Mayer told TechCrunch. “Yahoo, for many, is the definition of the Internet. Google, in terms of search and maps, changed everything. I really aspire to build a product that has that kind of impact again.”
Dazzle is expected to come out of stealth mode early next year. Its website, dazzle.ai, is currently password protected, preventing public access.