Snap Alumni's AI Platform District Raises $14.7M to Remake E-Commerce

LOS ANGELES, CA – May 06, 2026 – An AI commerce platform founded by former Snap product leads has emerged from a three-year stealth period with $14.7 million in seed funding and a mission to redefine how businesses sell online. The company, District, announced today its platform is now open to the public, aiming to empower anyone from individual creators to enterprise brands to build custom, interactive online businesses without writing a single line of code.

The significant funding round was co-led by venture capital giants Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Kindred Ventures, with participation from Greylock Partners and a roster of prominent angel investors including former Depop CEO Maria Raga and tech executive Gokul Rajaram. The investment signals strong confidence in District's vision to provide an alternative to both rigid, traditional e-commerce platforms and the restrictive walled gardens of social media marketplaces.

Founded by Eddie Koai, Patrick Mandia, and Khoi Tran, the platform leverages their experience at Snap, a company at the forefront of social and interactive media. District is designed to translate the dynamic, community-driven nature of social selling into fully owned, customizable business platforms.

A New Model for Online Selling

For years, online sellers have faced a difficult choice: build on a platform like Shopify, which offers robust tools but can be restrictive and costly to customize, or sell through social media giants like TikTok and Instagram, which provide massive audiences but little to no ownership over customer relationships or data. District aims to carve a new path between these two poles.

“Whenever a group of people forms around a shared interest, commerce naturally follows,” said Eddie Koai, CEO and co-founder of District. “We saw it everywhere, in fandoms, resale communities, and employee groups. People were already buying and selling with each other, but they were doing it with makeshift tools. District exists to turn those informal, high-trust marketplaces into real, scalable businesses.”

The platform's philosophy is that commerce tools have failed to keep pace with how people actually discover, engage with, and purchase products today—through live streams, community discussions, and interactive events. District provides the infrastructure to formalize these modern selling methods. Users can build platforms that host auctions, manage gated subscriptions for exclusive content, or launch live shopping events, all within a custom-branded environment they control.

The AI Engine Democratizing Commerce

At the heart of District's offering is its AI Builder. The company claims users can describe their business idea, audience, and desired selling methods in a simple text prompt, and the AI will generate a fully customized and functional storefront, complete with community features. This approach dramatically lowers the technical barrier and cost that have historically prevented non-engineers from creating sophisticated, bespoke e-commerce experiences.

The investment from firms like Andreessen Horowitz, which has a strong thesis on AI's transformative power, underscores the significance of this technology. AI is not just an add-on feature for District; it is the core enabler of its entire business model, promising to do for platform creation what other tools did for website building.

“As the cost of software development approaches zero, the winners will be platforms that combine speed, adaptability, and real infrastructure,” explained Bryan Kim, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “District enables businesses to run complex commerce operations without the traditional overhead, handling infrastructure and operational layers behind the scenes so brands can easily invest in new and changing selling formats.”

Beyond the AI-driven front-end creation, the platform includes a comprehensive 'Commerce Manager' dashboard for day-to-day operations like inventory, payments, and order fulfillment. It also provides enterprise-grade backend services such as fraud prevention, dispute resolution, and human customer support, features typically out of reach for small and mid-sized businesses.

From Quiet Development to Proven Traction

While today marks its public launch, District is far from a newcomer. The company has spent the last three years in a quiet development phase, onboarding more than 1,000 businesses and refining its product based on real-world usage. This methodical approach has already yielded impressive results for early adopters.

Early customer NikNax, a marketplace, reportedly generated over $5 million in sales in 2025 with more than 5,000 sellers on its District-powered platform. Another customer, Stacked Golf, is seeing $150,000 in weekly sales. The platform's client roster also includes notable names like Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema, demonstrating its flexibility across different types of commerce, from physical goods to community-based experiences.

The demand for this flexible, owned infrastructure extends to larger companies as well. District reports that it is already powering enterprise brands seeking to escape the limitations of off-the-shelf solutions. For these larger clients, the platform offers a way to experiment with novel selling formats and operate at scale without being locked into the rigid rules of established platforms.

With its new infusion of capital, District plans to further enhance its AI tools, expand its operational services, and scale the platform to support a growing number of businesses. By combining the ownership of traditional e-commerce with the interactivity of social selling, the company is well-positioned to power a new generation of online businesses built on community, creativity, and AI.