Layers Closes First Round of Funding from LOI Venture to Build Agentic AI Search and Merchandising for Shopify Plus

Layers, an enterprise AI search, visual discovery, and merchandising platform built for Shopify Plus, today announced the close of its first round of funding, led by LOI Venture, the $20 million fund co-founded by Hootsuite founder and CEO Ryan Holmes and angel investor Manny Padda.

The capital will be used to accelerate product development, expand the engineering team, and scale go-to-market efforts as Layers continues to grow across the Shopify Plus ecosystem.

Layers was built to address a gap in the Shopify Plus market. The platform delivers AI-powered search with intent processing, visual discovery with camera search and "Shop the Look" capabilities, and a merchandising suite with drag-and-drop controls and conditional rules, all with native support for Shopify metafields, bundles, and combined listings.

The funding will also support Layers' investment in infrastructure for agentic commerce, the emerging model in which AI agents search, compare, and purchase products on behalf of consumers. Built on a modern AI stack with 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 e-commerce that no longer exists," said Jake Casto, founder of Layers. "They were designed before AI changed how shoppers find products, and before agents started doing the shopping themselves. They are platform-agnostic, which sounds like a feature but is actually a limitation. Shopify Plus brands end up paying enterprise prices for a product that has no idea what a metafield is, let alone how to serve an autonomous agent. I had lived with this problem for years running Proton, my Shopify Plus engineering agency, and the more stores we worked with, the more obvious it became that this category needed to be rebuilt. The incumbents have not faced a serious challenge in over a decade, and we think that is about to change."

Layers grew out of Proton, the Shopify Plus engineering studio Casto founded, which has shipped more than 400 storefronts. What began as an internal tool built to bridge the gap between Shopify's default search and legacy enterprise platforms has since evolved into a standalone product used by a growing roster of Shopify Plus merchants. Lukas Tanasiuk joined as co-founder to lead commercial and go-to-market operations.

LOI Venture led the round after several months of diligence with Casto, Tanasiuk, and Layers' early customers.

"Layers is exactly the kind of company we look for: technical founders with deep, lived expertise in a category, building a product that customers immediately understand 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 is one of the highest-leverage layers in commerce, and it is being reshaped right now by AI and the rise of agentic shopping. Jake and Lukas have spent years inside the Shopify Plus ecosystem, and that operator perspective shows up in every part of 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 sourced by Ryan Holmes, with diligence led by LOI lead analyst Arjun Panju, who worked closely with the Layers founders over several months.

Layers is hiring across engineering, product, and go-to-market. Interested Shopify Plus brands can learn more at uselayers.com.