Ex-Spotify employees raise $10M to bring the AI behind its recommendations to e-commerce

Former Spotify employees founded a new startup called Malachyte that applies AI technology originally developed for music recommendations to online shopping. The startup raised $10 million in seed funding to bring what it calls "two-headed Vector AI" to e-commerce, which predicts what shoppers want in real time based on their current actions rather than just their past purchases. Most online stores treat all shoppers similarly, using historical data or demographics for personalization, while Malachyte's system adapts its product recommendations continuously as shoppers browse, search, and click. The platform first went live in fall 2025 with one retailer and became generally available to Shopify merchants in June 2026 through a native integration.