L Catterton backs Glance’s AI shopping push into US

L Catterton has taken a strategic equity stake in Glance, the InMobi-backed platform that is retooling its lock-screen content network into an AI shopping business for the US market. Neither company disclosed the size of the investment, but Inc42 reported it was a fresh infusion rather than a secondary sale.

The partnership is explicitly tied to Glance’s expansion across smartphones and connected TVs in the US, where it already ships pre-installed on devices from Samsung, Motorola, and DIRECTV. L Catterton said it will contribute consumer expertise, operating support, and its global retail network to help Glance scale. In a statement carried by Inc42, L Catterton global CEO Scott Dahnke called Glance’s proposition “differentiated,” noting its distribution across the screens consumers use throughout the day.

Glance’s AI shopping layer sits on top of that distribution. The platform uses agentic AI to infer user preferences and surface product recommendations without explicit search queries. Users can upload a selfie to generate images of themselves in suggested outfits, save the results as wallpapers, or proceed directly to purchase. Inc42 reported that Glance has built three technology layers: a commerce model for discovery, a generative AI model for visualisation, and a transaction model that integrates with partners like Myntra in India and unnamed US brands.

The company was founded in 2019 by InMobi’s four co-founders—Naveen Tewari, Piyush Shah, Abhay Singhal, and [co-founder]—and originally curated bite-sized content on smartphone lock screens. By May 2025, that original offering had reached 300-400 million users without requiring a separate app, and had raised around $500 million from investors including Google, Mithril Capital, and Jio Platforms. Glance began publicly testing its AI shopping product in April 2025, when COO Piyush Shah demonstrated the selfie-to-outfit feature at Inc42’s “The GenAI Summit.” A generative AI shopping app followed in India in May, with a soft launch in the US shortly after.

Glance’s ambition is to move commerce beyond search toward what CEO Naveen Tewari calls “agentic shopping.” The approach mirrors broader industry shifts: when we covered Meta’s acquisition of Swedish AI startup Stilla.ai on 10 September, the deal was framed as part of Meta’s push to automate business messaging with agentic tools. AMD’s reported work on a platform for running AI agents on personal computers, which we noted on 1 October, suggests similar momentum in hardware. Glance, however, is betting on the scale of its existing device footprint to support its expansion.

L Catterton’s involvement adds a new dimension. The firm, known for its consumer and retail focus, has backed brands in the direct-to-consumer and omnichannel space. Its investment in Glance suggests interest in AI-driven commerce models that could reshape product discovery. If Glance can demonstrate traction with its AI layer, it may attract further brand partnerships and accelerate its US rollout.

The next phase will likely hinge on how effectively Glance can leverage its device partnerships. While the company has pre-installed access on millions of devices, the integration of its AI shopping features remains an open question. Success could depend on whether users adopt these tools as part of their daily interactions with their devices.

Sources: inc42.com