Fancy

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Fancy (TheFancy, fancy.com) was a New York-based social shopping platform founded by Joe Einhorn, launched as an invitation-only photo community in late 2010 and opened to the public in January 2011. Part store, blog, magazine, and wishlist, it let users 'fancy' products, curate collections, and buy directly on the site — the company took a 10% cut of each transaction — positioning itself as a commerce-first rival to Pinterest. It raised about $44 million through 2012 (backers included Jack Dorsey, Andreessen Horowitz, and American Express), then $60 million more across two Series C rounds in 2013, and claimed 7 million registered users.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

1. 2010
   Founded

   TheFancy launched in late 2010 as an invitation-only photo-sharing community founded by Joe Einhorn, opening to the public in January 2011.

2. 2013
   Bought fancy.com; international push

   The company bought the fancy.com domain and rebranded from TheFancy, raised $60 million across two Series C rounds, and launched worldwide shipping with 7 million registered users.

3. 2014
   Fundraising stalled; sale talks

   After failing to raise more funding at a ~$1.2 billion valuation, Fancy entered talks to sell itself — reportedly to eBay for about $1 billion — according to Bloomberg.