Thinking About Thinking

We are very pleased to partner with Cue Ball Capital on a $10 million investment in Stylesight which was announced yesterday.  Stylesight is the leading style information service and SAAS platform for the global design ecosystem.  Thousands of retailers, brands and manufacturers are using the subscription service to be inspired by real-time design images from around the world and leverage that content into a web-based design process. 

Want to know what kind of black, above knee, modern black skirts women were wearing on the streets of Sao Paolo – yesterday?  Stylesight can tell you.  Want to take those high resolution images, zoom in on the stitching, and create a story board for the front end of your Spring lineup design process?  Stylesight can do that for you as well.  In millions of different derivations, Stylesight brings the world of design to your fingertips in real-time.  As their tag line goes: “Images that Inspire.  Tools to Get the Job Done.” 

What I love about Stylesight is when prospects see the product – there is such a huge “wow” factor.  I was at a launch party for their latest release – and the expressions of amazement on prospects faces tells it all.  The conversion rate to customer after seeing the demo is pretty staggering.  With customers that love the service and a wide open market, Stylesight is becoming the industry standard, which is why they the grew so aggressively through a terrible economy last year.  Stylesight’s ambition for global leadership are firmly in place, and we’re pleased to support them.   

We are also very pleased to partner with Cue Ball Capital for the first time.  It is a privilege to be working with Tony Tjan and Dick Harrington at Cue Ball.  I personally view Cue Ball as a rising star in the Boston venture capital scene.  They have a wealth of knowledge on recurring revenue, information services businesses – and the Cue Ball Collective is for real.  There was substantial interest from different financial parties for this round, but Cue Ball stood above the rest given their expertise, value and enthusiasm.

Stylesight also happens to be the type of company we love at Volition.  When we first came across Stylesight – it was and is a high growth, founder-owned, principally bootstrapped company with a strong recurring revenue base and a diversified, very satisfied customer base.   Given our investment, it is no longer a bootstrapped company, but we all expect that the capital and partnership will lead to a much larger end outcome for all involved. 

Exciting times for Stylesight, Cue Ball and Volition.  Onwards and upwards.