Driven by a “chip on her shoulder,” Phoebe Gates insists her $185 million AI startup Phia will succeed “with no ties to my privilege or my last name.”
Phoebe Gates wants to build her AI shopping company without including one thing in her pitch deck: her last name. The 23-year-old youngest daughter of billionaire founder Bill Gates and philanthropist Melinda French Gates recently raised $35 million for Phia, which now has a valuation of around $185 million.
But she’s determined for the venture to stand on its own—“with no ties to my privilege or my last name,” Phoebe Gates told Finance’s Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast in an published Thursday.
“I have a chip on my shoulder,” she said, explaining her drive to prove she can win over Silicon Valley private equity firms based on merit, not inheritance or family legacy.
Phoebe Gates’ comments come as her father’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein have resurfaced, though Bill Gates’ representatives have repeatedly denied his involvement and any related accusations. Phoebe Gates didn’t comment on the allegations, but French Gates recently said her ex-husband “” regarding mentions in Epstein files—just weeks after it was revealed she had received toward her philanthropic organization, Pivotal, as part of her .
Phoebe Gates did acknowledge her father’s business success, saying: “From my dad, I’ve really learned that your team is the core of what you’re building. You can’t do anything without an incredible team.”
How Phoebe Gates is paving her own path
, an AI shopping assistant, with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The shopping assistant integrates with browsers like Chrome and Safari to compare prices and highlight deals across tens of thousands of retail and resale sites in real time. It essentially acts as your personal deal finder: if you’re looking at a $200 Anthropologie dress, for example, Phia can find and compare prices at second-hand sellers to help customers get a better deal.
“Our target consumer is a young woman who’s hustling. She shops like a genius, but she doesn’t want to waste her time doing it,” Gates told ’s Most Powerful Women editor Emma Hinchliffe in April 2025.
The New York–based startup launched its app in 2025 and has grown quickly, racking up hundreds of thousands of downloads in its first months as investors pour into AI “agents” that automate digital tasks. A , with participation from firms including Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, pushed Phia’s valuation to about $185 million less than a year after an initial $8 million seed round.
Gates and Kianni first brainstormed startup ideas in their Stanford dorm room, cycling through concepts before settling on a consumer tool that combines Gates’ interest in women’s empowerment (likely modeled after her mother) and Kianni’s focus on sustainability.
In line with Gates’ insistence on building her own venture without relying on her last name’s benefits, the young founder hasn’t taken money from her parents for Phia. Instead, she’s insisted on raising outside capital—even as some investors remain fixated on her personal life rather than her business.
Gates and Kianni have said the topic of their potential future children has come up in meetings before, which was understandably frustrating for the entrepreneurial duo. But French Gates—a women’s rights activist—gave Gates some stern : “Get up or get out the game.”
“Investors ask us all the time, ‘Well, what happens when you two go have babies?’ And I remember one time crying about that. I called my mom, and she was like, ‘Get up or get out the game, sis.’ I was like, damn,” Gates said on an of the Call Her Daddy podcast published in April 2025.
She now uses that saying to remind herself when navigating investor meetings, all while trying to push back against nepo baby accusations. This isn’t just another legacy project, Gates argues.
“The chip on my shoulder is about more than just proving myself—it’s about building something novel and unique that consumers actually love,” she said.