Before launching her $8 million startup, Phoebe Gates turned to her billionaire founder parents for advice. After all, when your dad is the cofounder of Microsoft, he might know a thing or two about building a business.
The 23-year-old daughter of Bill and Melinda French Gates recalled the guidance they shared wasn’t about money. Instead, the thing that could make or break a product’s success, they advised, is your team.
“The people that you build with, who you’re at the office until 1 a.m. with—even, it comes down to the summer intern you have. The people that you choose to build with every single day, whether that’s your incredible co-founder, like I have Sophia—that’s what’s actually going to define, you know, whether the product succeeds,” Gates told Fortune in an episode of the Term Sheet podcast.
As she worked alongside her peers, that advice quickly proved true. Gates realized the importance of surrounding herself with like-minded people who shared her vision for Phia, the new fashion-tech startup she launched with her Stanford roommate Sophia Kianni.
Since its debut in April 2025, the AI-powered shopping assistant has attracted over 500,000 users and partnered with more than 5,000 brands.
“We are the women who use this product day in and day out. That’s why we wanted to bring people onto our cap table who truly understand how shopping needs to adapt and where it’s headed,” she said.
It’s no doubt when building out the team of her app and mobile browser extension that its prominent backers are what unlocked the door to such success.
Fortune exclusively learned that the product’s $8 million in seed funding is led by Kleiner Perkins, with high-profile investors including Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner, Sheryl Sandberg, Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, and eBay.
“It was foundational for us not only to have women on our cap table but especially people who deeply understood the problem,” she added.
Melinda French Gates draws the line at writing a check for a start-up
But despite Gates’ parents opening up the door for a substantial rolodex of billionaire contacts, her mother Melinda, who has an estimated $29 billion of net worth, draws the line at career guidance when it comes writing a check.
“I have a daughter who just started a business this year,” the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Bill Gates recently said this June at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit presented by E.l.f. Beauty. “She got capitalized not because of my contacts, not because of me. I wouldn’t put money into it.”
The reason? Growth. If this is a “real business,” she said, then others need to be willing to back it. And more importantly, her daughter should learn how to navigate the sting of rejection if it doesn’t get that funding. “That’s what I told her,” French Gates added. “She’s growing from this.”
Her ex-husband has echoed a similar sentiment; the cofounder has previously said that his children will inherit “less than 1%” of his wealth when he eventually passes away, insisting they should make it into the world alone.
