Major tech companies are increasingly pushing AI assistants into the shopping experience, and startups are beginning to see rapid growth in the space. Onton — formerly known as Deft — said on Wednesday that its user base has expanded from 50,000 monthly active users to more than 2 million, driven by rising consumer adoption of AI recommendations for product discovery.
The AI-powered furniture shopping platform has now raised $7.5 million in a new funding round led by Footwork, with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures, and 43. With this round, Onton’s total funding stands at about $10 million.
The startup rebranded to Onton earlier this year, citing confusion around the original name and the difficulty of securing a premium domain.
Onton co-founder Zach Hudson said that while large language models can understand intent, they still fall short in many e-commerce use cases. He noted that customers now take longer to make purchase decisions, which creates more opportunities for AI systems that can surface specific features, understand context, and adapt to user preferences.
Hudson said the company uses a neuro-symbolic architecture to reduce hallucinations and improve logical search results. The model also learns real-world attributes that may not appear in a product description. For example, the system identifies polyester fabrics as more stain and scratch-resistant, making them better suited for pet owners.
Onton also accounts for the varied naming conventions used by retailers when describing similar products, allowing the platform to normalize these differences and return more relevant results.
Beyond search, Onton has added new input tools, including image uploads and AI-generated room concepts, enabling users to design a space and automatically receive matching furniture recommendations. With its new funding, the company plans to expand beyond furniture into apparel and eventually consumer electronics.
