Fashion shopping platform Lyst is set to be acquired by Japanese eCommerce firm Zozo.
The $154 million deal, announced in a news release Wednesday (April 9), will make Lyst a wholly owned subsidiary of Zozo, itself another fashion-focused eCommerce company.
“This is an exciting moment for Lyst, and a win-win for our fashion ecosystem of shoppers and partners as we move forward as part of Zozo Group,” Lyst CEO Emma McFerran said. “Our space is evolving fast, and we share a vision with Zozoto to build a better, brighter future for the industry, using AI and technology. With Zozo’s scale, expertise and support, Lyst will be in an even stronger position to reimagine fashion discovery online.”
According to the release, Lyst connects 160 million shoppers each year with 27,000 premium and luxury brands and retailers. Zozo operates “Zozotown,” serving 12 million customers per year with measurement technologies such as “Zozofit,” a 3D body scanner available in the U.S.
Lyst had been valued at up to $700 million after raising $85 million during a funding round in 2021. While the company sold for far below its earlier valuation, a report by TechCrunch noted the multiple headwinds facing Lyst. These include new U.S. tariffs, as close to a third of the London-based company’s revenues come from sales in the U.S.
But even before the tariffs, Lyst was facing stiff competition from online specialty fashion retailers, to say nothing of the likes of Amazon and Temu.
In addition, the report added, companies are facing increasing pressure to show that they can tie their growth strategy to artificial intelligence (AI).
To that end, the companies’ announcement said that Zozo “will invest in accelerating the development of Lyst’s cutting-edge AI-driven discovery experience.”
PYMNTS examined the use of AI in the online fashion space earlier this year in a conversation with Noah Zamansky, vice president of product and tech and client experience at online personal styling service Stitch Fix.
“AI has been part of our journey since day one,” Zamansky told PYMNTS during an interview for the When Chatbots Go Shopping 2025 Series. “We believe that at the heart of our experience is that magic we provide when science and our stylists come together.”
Among the company’s offerings is its Client Time Series Model, which continuously learns from billions of data points, Zamansky added.
“Every interaction, from stylist notes to item returns, refines our understanding of each client’s style preferences,” he said, noting that these insights affect everything from recommendations to inventory management, allowing stylists to spend more time creating personalized experiences and less time searching for items.
