Yahoo Will Acquire Fashion Startup Polyvore

Yahoo just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire style-focused community Polyvore.

In a blog post about the deal, Yahoo’s senior vice president of publisher products Simon Khalaf highlighted “Polyvore’s expertise on community-driven experiences and retailer-supported commerce” and wrote that the deal “will accelerate Yahoo’s digital content growth strategy across the areas of social, mobile and native.”

Khalaf also said the Polyvore team will be joining Yahoo and working out of the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, San Francisco and New York, with co-founder and CEO Jess Lee reporting directly to him.

While Yahoo is highlighting its plans to incorporate Polyvore’s commerce and community features onto properties like Yahoo Style and Yahoo Beauty, a spokesperson said there will be “no change” to the startup’s website and apps: “With Yahoo’s support and investment, the technology and business are expected to grow with time.”

Lee said something in her post about the deal:

Going forward, Polyvore will still be the same Polyvore that you love, but we’ll have more resources to make it even bigger & better. Our mission of empowering people to feel good about their style will stay the same. We’ll continue to add cool new product features and roll out new perks for top members. We’ve accomplished a lot on our own, but together with Yahoo we can take Polyvore to its fullest potential.

There’s some personal history here, too. Lee participated in Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s associate product manager program at Google, and she said the advice Mayer gave her during the job interview later inspired her to leave Google for Polyvore.

Founded in 2007, Polyvore allows users to browse clothing and accessories, combine them into outfits and make purchases. According to CrunchBase, the company raised $22.1 million in funding from investors including Benchmark, Harrison Metal, Matrix Partners and DAG Ventures — it’s been more than three years since its last reported round.

Yahoo has been notably acquisitive during Mayer’s tenure, but that seemed to have slowed down this year. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.