Loops Raises $3.5M to Build the AI Operating System for Commerce
Loops brings AI search, shopping assistance, product enrichment, and virtual try-on into one system for retailers. The Loops seed round comes from a16z speedrun, NTT Docomo, and three other investors.
October 12, 2026 - 12:00 pm
Loops AI Chief Executive Ari Nazir and Chief Technology Officer Yusuf Bahadir
Credit: Loops
Online shopping has become very good at showing people thousands of products, but surprisingly bad at helping them choose one. Loops was built around the idea that AI can collapse those experiences into one continuous journey.
The company announced a $3.5 million seed round from a16z speedrun, NTT Docomo, Connecticut Innovations, Alumni Ventures, and Monday Capital. Loops will scale its AI platform for brands and retailers. It helps businesses understand what a shopper is trying to accomplish, surface the right products, and guide them through the decision. The retailer doesn't have to assemble multiple AI products behind the scenes.
Why This Matters Today
AI is arriving in e-commerce one workflow at a time. One product improves search, another answers shopper questions, another writes product descriptions, another handles virtual try-on. Each is useful on its own, and the retailer is left to stitch them together. Loops builds around the same product knowledge, business context, and customer journey, so each part sharpens the others.
Better catalog data improves search, search gives the assistant context, and customer conversations reveal where product information is weak.
"The biggest mistake we see is treating AI as a collection of features," said İlker Selim Zorluoğlu, President and Co-Founder of Loops. "A retailer does not need five different AI products that each understand one slice of the customer. It needs one system that understands the catalog, the business, and what the shopper is trying to do. Commerce is where we are proving that model, and we think the same architecture can eventually become the AI operating layer for other industries as well."
How Loops Works
Loops follows the shopper through the whole journey, from the first search to the moment they click buy. It starts with discovery.
Shoppers describe what they want in plain language, the way they would to a friend or to ChatGPT. AI search surfaces the right products without keywords, filters, or a retailer’s internal catalog logic getting in the way.
When questions come up, a built-in shopping assistant answers them on the spot and helps people decide. It carries service conversations across every connected channel, so no shopper is left waiting hours for a reply.
What makes that possible is the layer underneath. Product enrichment rewrites descriptions, attributes, and catalog data until every product is fully legible to customers and AI systems alike. That is what lets search and the assistant give answers a retailer can trust. Virtual try-on then closes the gap between browsing and buying by letting shoppers see the product on themselves before they commit.
Each piece feeds the next. The result is a shopping experience that feels like talking to someone who knows the catalog inside out.
The Journey
Loops started with a failed purchase. Co-founders Ari Nazir and İlker Selim Zorluoğlu were in Bali when İlker tried to buy a gift for his two-year-old daughter. He messaged the retailer and waited hours for a reply. He never bought it. The founders dug into why and found a bigger gap in the market.