Kaleidoscope updates fashion app to offer suggestions

Fashionistas can turn to an app providing personalized clothing recommendations, buying options

Back in July, a San Francisco-based startup, Copious, was looking to take the Pinterest model and make it more central to an e-commerce platform.

Now, Kaleidoscope, a mobile and desktop app making fashion-focused boards to help women purchase what they want is cropping up in Copious' shadow.

Kaleidoscope recently rolled out an updated version of its app which really focuses on making the best recommendations for fashion-focused ladies.

This means that users will no longer be browsing through apparel, handbags and shoes, it will be coming to them based on previous loves and buys.

In order to make these recommendations and other updates, the company had to increase its Facebook integration and algorithms for personalization. 

Kaleidoscope is pulling in users’ Facebook profile data to learn what they like in order to show them items similar to those they’ve expressed interest in.

While some don't necessarily like to connect their Facebook to other apps, Kaleidoscope has found that Facebook users are also the most highly engaged. 

In version 2 of the app is support for unique profile URLs, which lets users share their favorites with others outside of the social web – a top-requested feature.

The Kaleidoscope app runs on Inporia which was founded by Max Skibinsky, a social gaming exec that sold his company Hive7 to Playdom in 2010, as well as Ryan Junee, an advisor to 500 Startups, StartMate. 

Kaleidoscope has raised $1.25 million in seed funding from NEA, SV Angel, 500 Startups, Clearstone Venture Partners,  Southern Cross Venture Partners, Ignition Partners, Y Combinator, and the Start Fund.

Just a few weeks ago, competitor, Copious raised $5 million in Series A funding.

The round, led by Foundation Capital, with Google Ventures and Relay Ventures participating, brings the company funding to $7 million.

Copious launched its beta version to the public in June 2011, and was designed much like eBay but with a significant amount of social components built deep into the product so that people that share or tweet the people they do business with or store styles they are really liking.

Copious has a target demographic of women 18-40 and is strong in the apparel sector. The platform has been built to cater to the items that the merchants wish to sell. There are individuals that sell baby clothes, personalized shirts and even techie keepsakes.

Currently, this company plans to use the new funds to grow its intimate staff of 12 as well as build out demographic base and eventually expand its reach to international markets.

Copious makes money off of the social e-commerce self-contained platform by taking a 9.5% commission from each transaction.