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Deena Varshavskaya originally hails from Siberia but now makes her home in San Francisco where her startup Wanelo is based. [Photo via Instagram]
Deena faced rejection 40 times before she found the right investors to back her social shopping app with $14 million in venture funding. [Isabel Marant Owel color-block knitted sweater,
Stores like Nordstrom, Sephora, Nike, Free People, Crate & Barrel, ModCloth, Yoox, Forever 21, and Nasty Gal (plus 300 others) have all added Wanelo buttons to their sites. [Follow the Flock Motorcycle Jacket,
The app is meant to work like a shopping mall for the ecommerce age—meaning that the user can discover and browse high-end and indie brands on one platform. [Francesco Ballestrazzi Feather Ear Piece in Black,
Wanelo also curates a feed for the user based on products viewed and saved. [I Love the 90s Crop Top, $42 at Nylon Magazine]
Currently, 90 percent of Wanelo's 11 million users are women, and half of these (mostly mobile) users are between the ages of 18 and 24, SF Business Times
The next step for the startup is to tap an older demographic by adding more value and more utility to the app's functionalities. [Trina Turk Ali Wrap in Blush Pink, $
If you don't know much about Wanelo (or, really, anything at all), you'll want to change that soon. Deena Varshavskaya's startup is the fastest-growing social shopping site, with 11 million users. (That's up from just 1 million last year.) Before you know it, you'll be at a major shopping disadvantage if you're late to add this platform into your shopping routine. To make the leap more palatable, here are seven facts about Wanelo and its founder (aka @siberianfruit on her social platforms) paired with seven actual items from her Wanelo collections.