Encore is an AI-powered search engine for your growing needs

Former Apple engineer Alex Ruber and former Twitter and Asana engineer Parth Chopra first met on the Y Combinator founder’s platform, then met in person at a thrift store. Later they went on a shopping trip to a supermarket where they talked about solving problems by finding the right product on the internet.

Many shoppers struggle to find the right item without spending hours on Instagram. To address this, the duo created the search engine Encore, which allows users to search used materials from different sources. The startup is currently part of Y Combinator’s first ever fall batch.

“The whole second-hand market is fragmented. There are hundreds of resources out there, such as Depop, Mercari, ThredUp, eBay, Craigslist, and more. It is difficult for consumers to sort through them all to try to reach the product they are looking for. So we wanted to remove that friction from users,” Ruber said on the phone with TechCrunch.

Both Ruber and Chopra are immigrants, he said, and used to spend time and money at grocery stores.

But raising money is not easy. When Ruber was trying to get a certain coat from a TV show (Carmy’s patchwork jacket from “The Bear”), he started thinking about creating a product to help him with that. He also wanted to look at one of the founders working in the area of ​​the circular economy. He mentioned that Chopra was a great match because he was trendy and progressive.

“For me, there was also a personal interest because my mother used to take me to the stock market every Sunday. I bought many things from those places, including a piano, when I started learning the instrument. The core idea of ​​flea markets and Encore is about finding a hidden gem,” the former Apple engineer noted.

AI-powered Encore search

On Encore, you can type in your question and find matches on many sites, including Poshmark, RealReal, Grailed, Etsy, and eBay. Because Encore uses large language modeling technology, you can type a query like “Show me the dress Emily wore in ‘Emily in Paris’ Season 3 Episode 4.”

The search engine also shows incomplete instructions like “Outfit inspo for” and “Shop at the show.” If you tap them, you can complete the prompt with auto-filled suggestions or your words. This is mainly to show users the different types of search terms they can use and avoid a blank page when users don’t understand the power of the search engine.

Ruber noted that sentence length can vary, sometimes by a lot. Some people just enter a simple sentence like “Show me the jeans” while others write a detailed description like “I’m 6’2″ skinny and looking for ski pants under $100 that don’t have big logos on them.”

The secondhand market is on an upward curve, with analysts expecting it to reach $73 billion in the US and $350 billion worldwide by 2028. A report by online thrift store ThredUp notes that online second-hand resale will dominate the second-hand market by 2025.

It generates over 50,000 search processes per month and is seeing 26% month-over-month growth in searches and 15% growth in clicks.

Startups currently rely on related stocks to make money. However, the company is also experimenting with a $3 per month subscription that offers unlimited searches with advanced models, finds items by uploading photos, and offers email and chat support.