Fashion tech startup Doji has secured $14 million in seed funding to enhance its AI-powered virtual try-on platform, which uses lifelike digital avatars.
Thrive Capital led the funding round with participation from Seven Seven Six Ventures and several angel investors.
The new funding will help Doji scale its AI-powered avatar app that lets users virtually try on clothes in a fun, social, and personalized way.
An AI-powered Fashion Tech Platform
Co-founded in 2024 by Dorian Dargan and Jim Winkens, Doji enables users to generate realistic, full-body avatars from selfies and body photos. Their AI-generated avatars allow users to visualize how different outfits would look on their likeness, whether browsing directly within the app or pasting in links from outside fashion retailers.
Sharing the news on his LinkedIn page, Dargan, Doji’s CEO, expressed his excitement about building a platform that puts users at the center of their fashion journey, stating, “Fashion is meant to be fun. But somewhere along the way, shopping for clothes online became overwhelming instead of exciting. We believe there’s a better way – one that celebrates creativity and self-expression.”
Doji, which combines the founders’ first names, Dorian and Jim, allows users to upload selfies and full-body images to generate an avatar, as TechCrunch reports. From there, the app suggests looks based on favorite brands and will enable users to mix and match clothing. Unlike traditional e-commerce, the fashion tech startup emphasizes play, personalization, and community.
Dargan previously worked at Apple on VisionOS and at Meta on games and experiences on Oculus Quest. Winkens was a researcher at DeepMind and also worked on a generative AI-based consumer product at Google.
The duo connected on X (formerly known as Twitter) around 2022. After realizing a shared interest in the fashion world, they began exploring side projects to work on together. Later, when the controversial avatar creation app Lensa was released, Dargan saw how deep people’s connections with their avatars were.
“Lensa was doing stylized avatars with different themes,” Dargan told TechCrunch. “We saw Lensa and thought, what if we could do this for fashion, but in a photo-realistic way?”
Investors See Doji as a Potential Category Leader
An app like Doji only exists thanks to recent advancements in AI. The company uses its own diffusion models to create personalized avatars and make clothing try-ons more realistic.
The $14 million round indicates firm investor conviction in AI-native consumer platforms. Thrive Capital and Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six see Doji as a potential category leader in the emerging intersection of AI and digital retail.
Thrive Capital partner Miles Grimshaw said he’s been enthralled by Doji’s app since first using it. He told TechCrunch that diffusion models create an opportunity to build a “virtual mirror” to try on clothes.
“Going around the web to hundreds of click links to shop is laborious. Doji has an opportunity to make shopping fun as it puts me at the center of the experience. The app also has a social aspect that makes me want to share different looks [with friends and family],” he added.
With the new capital, Doji intends to grow its engineering, product, and operations teams while improving avatar realism, processing time, and UX. Although Doji is invite-only, it already lives in over 80 countries.
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