Tilt Raises $18M Series A to Bring Live Shopping to Western Consumers
April 5, 2024
Tilt, the London-based live shopping platform, has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital, with participation from existing investors TQ Ventures, Earlybird, and Seedcamp. The funding will be used to scale the platform, grow the team, and deepen Tilt's engagement with its rapidly expanding community of fashion buyers and sellers.
The company was founded by two early Revolut alumni: Abhi Thanendran, who served as Revolut's first data scientist and went on to lead its data team, and Neil Shah, who was Revolut's fifth employee and headed up the company's international expansion and authorisations divisions. The pair applied the product velocity and growth-hacking ethos they developed at Revolut to tackle a long-standing gap in Western e-commerce: the absence of a compelling live shopping experience.
Tilt's platform allows Gen Z buyers to join live video streams hosted by fashion brands and independent sellers, where they can discover, interact with, and purchase items in real time without being redirected to a separate website. The app supports live auctions, giveaways, and interactive events, creating the kind of urgency and community feel that traditional e-commerce platforms have struggled to replicate. It is positioned in the top ten UK shopping apps, ranking above Depop and eBay in its category.
Live commerce has become a dominant retail format in Asia, particularly in China, where the sector is expected to account for between 10 and 20 percent of all e-commerce transactions by 2026. In Western markets, however, attempts to transplant the model — by players including Instagram and WhatsApp — have largely failed to gain traction. Tilt's founders argue that the key is finding the right niche rather than replicating the mass-market Asian format; their focus on fashion and Gen Z users, combined with features built around community and entertainment, has allowed them to gain more than half a million users within their first year of launch.
The Series A capital will enable Tilt to expand its suite of real-time shopping formats, grow seller and brand partnerships, and invest in the technology infrastructure needed to support further scale. Balderton Capital partner Daniel Waterhouse, who led the firm's investment, noted that Tilt had achieved what many larger platforms had failed to do — crack live shopping in the UK — and highlighted the team's focus on authentic community engagement as a key differentiator.
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