Layers Completes First Round of Funding Led by LOI Venture to Build an Agentic AI Search and Merchandising Platform for Shopify Plus
Layers, an enterprise-grade AI search and merchandising platform for Shopify Plus, announced the completion of its first round of funding, led by LOI Venture. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, expand the engineering team, and scale market efforts, while also investing in infrastructure for agentic e-commerce.
NEW YORK — The enterprise-grade AI search, visual discovery, and merchandising platform for Shopify Plus Layers today announced the closing of its first round of funding, led by LOI Venture . LOI Venture is a $20 million fund co-founded by Hootsuite founder and CEO Ryan Holmes and angel investor Manny Padda.
The proceeds from this round will be used to accelerate product development, expand the engineering team, and scale go-to-market efforts to support Layers' continued growth within the Shopify Plus ecosystem.
Layers aims to fill a gap in the Shopify Plus market. The platform offers AI-driven search with intent processing, visual discovery with photo search and "Shop the Look" functionality, and a merchandising suite with drag-and-drop controls and conditional rules, with native support for Shopify metafields, bundles, and combined listings.
The funding will also support Layers' investment in agentic commerce infrastructure. Agentic commerce is an emerging model where AI agents search, compare, and purchase products on behalf of consumers. Built on a modern AI technology stack and supporting real-time Shopify sync, Layers is designed to serve both human shoppers and autonomous agents.
"Most search and merchandising platforms in our category were built for a version of ecommerce that no longer exists," said Jake Casto, founder of Layers. "They were designed before AI changed how consumers discover products, and before agents began shopping on behalf of consumers. They claim to be platform-agnostic, which sounds like a strength but is actually a limitation. Shopify Plus brands end up buying products at enterprise prices from vendors that don't even know what a metafield is, let alone how to serve autonomous agents. I dealt with this problem for years while running Proton, my Shopify Plus engineering agency; the more stores we worked with, the clearer it became that this category needs to be rebuilt. Incumbents haven't faced a real challenge in over a decade, and we believe that's about to change."
Layers was born out of Proton—the Shopify Plus engineering studio founded by Casto, which has delivered over 400 storefronts. Initially developed as an internal tool to bridge the gap between Shopify's default search and traditional enterprise platforms, it has since evolved into a standalone product adopted by a growing number of Shopify Plus merchants. Lukas Tanasiuk joined as co-founder, overseeing commercial and go-to-market operations.
LOI Venture led the round following months of due diligence with Casto, Tanasiuk, and early Layers customers.
"Layers is exactly the kind of company we look for: technical founders with deep, hands-on experience in a category, building a product that customers understand immediately and that wins on day one of a head-to-head evaluation," said Manny Padda, co-founder and managing director of LOI Venture. "Search and merchandising are among the highest-leverage parts of commerce, and they're being reshaped right now by the rise of AI and agentic shopping. Jake and Lukas have spent years deep in the Shopify Plus ecosystem, and that operator perspective shows throughout the product. We see a clear path for Layers to become the default AI search and merchandising platform for the next generation of Shopify Plus brands."
The round was introduced by Ryan Holmes, with due diligence led by LOI's lead analyst Arjun Panju, who worked closely with the Layers founders for several months.
Layers is hiring across engineering, product, and marketing. Interested Shopify Plus brands can visit uselayers.com to learn more.
About Layers
Layers is the enterprise-grade AI search, visual discovery, and merchandising platform for Shopify Plus. Founded by Jake Casto and Lukas Tanasiuk, Layers provides Shopify Plus brands with a unified platform that natively understands how Shopify works, with a feature set that meets or exceeds that of traditional vendors. Layers is a product of Building Blocks For eCommerce, Inc. Learn more at uselayers.com。
About LOI Venture
LOI Venture is a $20 million pre-seed and seed-stage venture fund co-founded by Ryan Holmes (founder and CEO of Hootsuite) and Manny Padda (founder of New Avenue Capital). The fund supports early-stage founders with strong technical and business conviction, with a particular focus on League of Innovators program graduates. Learn more at loi.vc。
