The elevator pitch was good enough for celebrity money. Now it is good enough for a penthouse.
Phia, the personalized shopping app co-founded by Phoebe Gates — youngest daughter of Bill Gates — has signed a lease on a newly renovated penthouse office at a building on East 18th Street in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, according to reporting by Curbed. The move follows a $36 million funding round the company closed with backing from a roster of celebrity investors whose names have made the rounds on the startup circuit.
Phia pitches itself as an AI-driven style and shopping recommendation platform, the kind of app that tells you what to buy before you knew you wanted it. Gates co-founded the company alongside climate activist and entrepreneur Sophia Kianni. The two have leaned heavily on social media to build the brand’s profile, and the funding haul suggests that pitch has landed with people writing serious checks.
The Flatiron address is a statement as much as a lease. The neighborhood has spent the better part of a decade pulling in consumer-tech firms, direct-to-consumer brands, and fashion-adjacent offices that want a Manhattan postcode without Midtown’s overhead or SoHo’s foot-traffic chaos. A renovated penthouse floor on East 18th puts Phia squarely in that cohort — visible real estate for a company that has lived mostly on screens.
No square footage or lease terms were disclosed. The company is expected to begin operating out of the new space in the coming months.