Phoebe Gates, daughter of Seattle's Bill Gates, launches startup, champions women in tech
Phoebe Gates launches fashion tech app to empower women founders in AI
Seattle native Phoebe Gates and co-founder Sofia Kianni are redefining female leadership in tech with their AI shopping app, Phia, which curates deals across 40,000 sites.
SEATTLE - The "Tech Crunch Disrupt 2025" conference in San Francisco is a gateway of sorts for up-and-coming founders and the Gates name, synonymous with tech and Seattle, is getting a Gen Z rebrand.
Backstage, the Seattle freeze was nowhere to be felt— instead, Seattle-area native Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni are helping thaw the perspective on female friends turned tech co-founders.
"I said you guys pair so well together, you guys just bounce off each other. Where does that energy come from?" asked FOX 13 Seattle anchor Sabirah Rayford.
"From living in a box together when we were roommates at Stanford," Kianni explained.
Phoebe Gates, Sabirah Rayford and Sophia Kianni (left to right)
The backstory:
You could call it a perfect fit. They share a love for fashion, global activism and advocacy. Gates interned with partners in health in Rwanda, working on healthcare initiatives for the developing country. Kianni, an Iranian-American, became the youngest United Nations advisor in U.S. history. Still — they believe it was a random pairing.
That pairing led to a class project, a blossoming friendship, a mutual commitment to sustainability in fashion, and the discovery of Phia, an AI shopping agent, named after the pair. It also came with a cast of doubt.
"When we were at Stanford and we first told people when we were roommates together, and everyone's like, ‘Oh great you guys are best friends, that’s fine and dandy,’" Gates said. "But when we flip to this, we're actually going to start a business together, I had multiple professors pull me aside and say, ‘Oh you shouldn’t do that. It will immediately blow up in flames because you two are both extroverted people, you both are alphas.' And I think it’s kind of funny because the reality is we have seen so few women IPO a company. Less than 2% of VC funding goes to two female founders or solo female-founded businesses. That to me is absolutely criminal."
By the numbers:
According to a 2025 report by Founders Forum Group, out of the $289 billion of venture capital invested globally in 2024, female-only founded teams received $6.7 billion. So, female-founded companies received 2.3% of capital even though they represented 6.4% of the market.
The size of the deals paled in comparison to their male counterparts.
The average deal size for female-only founded companies was $5.2 million, while male-only founded companies on average received more than double the funding at $11.7 million.
"It’s really important to realize it’s very hard to be something that you cannot see," Kianni said.
"We see those people, whether that's Instagram being created, TikTok — those people are actually creating new world visions. So, if only 2% of that is going towards female founders, then we’re not seeing all the incredible world visions that women have coming to life," Gates said. "The flipside of thinking about that is, that is an incredible market opportunity. Think about how many different pain points there are in the female consumer journey."
Focusing on solutions for female consumers is part of how Phia was born.
"Essentially as you’re shopping it helps you understand, should you buy the item you’re looking at, or does a better option exist?" Kianni said.
They say the idea is to shop for trending styles and deals across more than 40,000 sites. It uses artificial intelligence to compare the resale value of an item, track shoppers' purchase history, and makes recommendations based on the customer’s shopping patterns.
"That’s where we move towards discovery, where we will be able to have a digital closet for our users in the app," Gates said.
Since launching in April 2025, the app has garnered more than 700,000 users. This, after $8 million was raised in a seed round of funding led by Venture Capital firm Kleiner Perkins. The fashion app also got investments from notable names like Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, and Spanx founder, Sara Blakely.
"Obviously your name, your last name carries a lot of weight," Rayford said. "What’s it been like trying to mend and mold your own path?"
"I think honestly having my last name is a huge privilege," Gates responded. "My college was absolutely paid for, that was something I never had to consider. I knew my parents would support me no matter what I did. So I think it’s really important to say, ‘Yeah, carving my own path is important,’ but it comes with so much privilege for me to have that last name. And people are willing to take conversations with me where if I didn’t have that last name they probably wouldn’t, let’s be honest."
Big picture view:
After graduating from Stanford in three years with a degree in human biology and a minor in African studies — while launching Phia — Gates says her work ethic and dedication to making the company a success speaks for itself.
"The reality is, our metrics and our numbers of retention, once you are using our product for two months, do you still use Phia every time you go shopping? That can’t be melded by having a last name or having parents with a legacy," she said. "Building a real product that’s actually sticking—the numbers do not lie. For me, it’s really about focusing on that, that’s really core."
They both say it’s also important to have the right people by your side.
"I think I got really lucky, right. I grew up in Seattle, where this is going, and I had some great friends from there who have always stuck with me, and the reality is, keep the people you are close with—you trust them," Gates said.
From friends to founders, like their sense of fashion, Gates’ and Kianni’s business relationship is proving to be more classic than fad. Two women working to open the floodgates to help women in tech rise to the top.
"More women need to have audacity and to feel like they are actually able to contribute and to go after these things that Phoebe was alluding to, have quite frankly really been dominated by men. And the fact that such few women are going out to try and raise venture funding to try and build these companies—it really means we need to start with basics of education and also having more women feel like they can be supported and that they have other women they can rely on who can help propel them forward," Kianni said.
In April, Gates and Kianni joined Alex Cooper’s Unwell network, launching a podcast called "The Burnouts." The duo describes it as a career survival guide—speaking to entrepreneurs, celebrities and other notable guests about their biggest lessons learned in life and business.
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The Source: Information in this story came from Founders Forum Group and original FOX 13 Seattle reporting and interviews.