Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Munjal Shah

Like.com Gets Bought Out By Google

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:57:35 +0000

In 2005, Google almost acquired Riya.com, a consumer-oriented image recognition company. Riya had the ability to recognize clothes, watches, earrings, etc. from an image and show you similar items through online retail channels. Google decided to walk away from Riya. Riya re-emerged as a company called Like.com shortly after.

Like.com raised almost $50 million since 2006 and makes around $50 million per year now, according to TechCrunch. The acquisition price is rumored to be higher than $100 million. Like.com was co-founded by Munjal Shah and Burak Gokturk.
[TechCrunch]

Like.com Launches 3-D Digital Fashion Arm Called Couturious

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:44:39 +0000

Like.com has some of the most interesting photo recognition technology embedded within their portfolio of websites. One of Like.com’s most recent creations is Couturious.com. Couturious allows you to pick a model from a variety of races and body types. After that you can decorate the model with boots, lingerie, dresses, shirts, etc. This way consumers can learn how an outfit would look on them without having to physically change. Like.com launched in 2006 and raised $32 million in funding. The company is currently valuated at about $100 million and is run by Like.com CEO and founder Munjal Shah. [TechCrunch]

Riya Is Shutting Down August 21st

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:10:55 +0000

Riya.com is a facial recognition service that was able to find similar images around the web. Riya founder Munjal Shah wrote an e-mail to their users this morning saying that they are shutting down the service on August 21st.

The service launched about four years ago and almost sold themselves to Google but the deal fell through. After the deal did not clear, Shah and his team decided to focus on a new service called Like.com. Like.com can detect accessories that people are wearing and find similar accessories (if not the same) for sale across the web.

Below is the full e-mail that was sent out.

[via TechCrunch]