L Catterton Bets on Glance, the AI Shopping Agent on 60 Million Screens

By Rebecca Stone

L Catterton has made a strategic investment in Glance, the AI shopping agent run by a subsidiary of tech company InMobi, placing the consumer-focused private equity firm directly into the emerging agentic commerce race.

The parties did not disclose the sum. What is confirmed is the vehicle: a shopping agent already accessible on more than 60 million devices in the U.S., distributed through an app and partnerships with Samsung, Android TV and DirecTV. For brands and retailers weighing channel strategy, the deal signals that AI-mediated discovery is now attracting institutional capital rather than venture experiments.

What does the investment buy?

Glance plans to spend the raised capital on two things: training its model faster and scaling distribution. CEO Naveen Tewari, who also founded InMobi, framed the technology in expansive terms.

"I don't think any one of us has ever seen a technology as profound as AI in our lifetime," Tewari said. "The power of this technology is being unleashed to essentially figure out what it can impact."

L Catterton's global chief executive officer, Scott Dahnke, tied the deal to four decades of backing behavioral shifts. "For nearly four decades, L Catterton has invested behind fundamental shifts in consumer behavior," Dahnke said. "We believe agentic commerce will be among the most consequential — changing not only how consumers purchase products, but how they are inspired and discover what comes next."

Dahnke also noted Glance's "broad distribution across the screens where people spend their time," positioning the agent as a reach play rather than a standalone app bet.

How does the agent perform today?

Tewari supplied usage figures that brands can weigh against the distribution claims.

• 10 million monthly active users in the U.S.
• About 120 shopping prompts per user per month
• Nearly 15 percent of users complete a purchase each month

"They're pretty active," Tewari said of the user base. "Almost 15 percent end up buying something a month."

The agent functions as a persistent personal shopper. It remembers preferences, searches for lower prices, offers virtual try-ons and seeks approval before completing a purchase. It does not eavesdrop, according to Tewari, but accepts feedback through chat and can use a smartphone camera when authorized. On smart TVs, it can identify garments worn by actors and surface purchasable options.

"It has a lot of intelligence at the back end to really figure out what's the right product for you," Tewari said, describing prompts such as making sure a shopper does not overpay.

What is the commercial model for brands?

Glance monetizes on two tracks. First, it takes a share of the sale price, similar to standard affiliate arrangements. Second, it charges brands a fee for deeper model training, so the agent represents a brand's products with full fidelity.

"Let brands own their authenticity and let the model learn the brand and its authenticity," Tewari said. "The model does not have a limitation like you and I to remember only a hundred brands. The model can actually remember a million brands."

Tewari positioned smaller authentic brands without scale as particular beneficiaries, discovered "for the right user at the right time."

He was explicit about where Glance sits in the value chain. "We are not the owner of the [consumer] relationship, neither are we the owner of the brand's messages," he said, casting the agent as a distribution partner that enriches consumers with accurate brand information.

What should sourcing and channel teams watch?

For supply-chain and e-commerce professionals, the deal raises concrete questions: whether paid model training becomes a required line item alongside affiliate commissions, and whether AI agents begin to steer demand toward trained brands at the expense of untrained ones.

No revenue figures, valuation or timeline for deployment of the new capital were disclosed. The investment remains an announced intention to accelerate training and scale, with measured results so far limited to the user and prompt counts Tewari provided.

Glance will use the L Catterton backing to compete in the fast-growing AI shopping agent field, where the fight is over who controls product discovery before the shopper ever reaches a brand's own site.