January 2026 Update
A Letter From the Founders
January 15, 2026
Dear Investors,
As we enter the new year, we’re excited to share several meaningful updates from January that continue to advance our mission of building the leading AI-powered search and discovery platform for modest fashion.
- Major Product Release (Beta):
We’re preparing to release a significant overhaul of the MDST Market app to beta next week. This update introduces two major pillars of our product vision: our in-app AI chatbot and upgraded computer vision models, both designed to make product discovery more intuitive, personalized, and intelligent.
- AI & Technical Team Expansion:
To support this progress, we’ve continued to strengthen our technical team with the addition of another computer vision / AI expert, further deepening our in-house expertise as we scale these core systems.
- Go-To-Market Momentum:
As part of our launch strategy, we’ve negotiated contracts with five influencers and creators. These partnerships will play a key role in driving early awareness and adoption, and we expect this effort to continue expanding over the coming months.
- Operational & Financial Infrastructure:
We’ve onboarded an accounting firm and are currently in the process of onboarding a firm to manage sales tax compliance, ensuring our financial and operational foundations are set up to scale responsibly.
- Trust, Privacy, and Compliance:
Alongside product development, we’ve continued refining our privacy policy and terms & conditions to reflect the evolving capabilities of our application and our commitment to user trust.
- User Research & Product-Market Fit:
We transitioned one of our UX Designers into a full-time research role. He is now focused exclusively on user research, product validation, and product-market fit—ensuring we’re building not just advanced technology, but the right product for our users.
- Venture Mentorship Program:
Lastly, we’ve been accepted into the MIT Venture Mentorship Program, providing us with access to experienced entrepreneurs and operators who will support us on strategy, execution, and scaling as we move toward launch.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to click the "Email Us" link at the top of the page.
With gratitude,
January 2026 Progress Report
Team Growth
In January, we’re continuing to expand our technical team with the addition of our second Machine Learning / Computer Vision Engineer. This hire further strengthens our in-house AI capabilities and supports the continued development and scaling of our computer vision and intelligent search systems.
Ronit Kumar
Machine Learning / Computer Vision Engineer
Product Development
🚧Major Application Overhaul (Beta Release):
We’re preparing to release a significant overhaul of the MDST Market app to beta in January. This update introduces two foundational components of our product vision: our in-app AI chatbot and upgraded computer vision models. Together, these systems enable a more intuitive, intelligent, and personalized discovery experience for users.
We’re preparing to release a significant overhaul of the MDST Market app to beta in January. This update introduces two foundational components of our product vision: our in-app AI chatbot and upgraded computer vision models. Together, these systems enable a more intuitive, intelligent, and personalized discovery experience for users.
🔎Enhanced Multi-Modal Search:
We’ve expanded and refined our multi-modal search capabilities, allowing users to discover products through a combination of natural language, visual understanding, and structured filters. These improvements bring us closer to a truly intent-driven search experience that adapts to how users describe and define modesty.
We’ve expanded and refined our multi-modal search capabilities, allowing users to discover products through a combination of natural language, visual understanding, and structured filters. These improvements bring us closer to a truly intent-driven search experience that adapts to how users describe and define modesty.
🤖AI Chatbot Integration:
Our AI chatbot is now integrated directly into the app as a discovery companion. It helps users articulate preferences, refine search results, and navigate modesty-specific needs through conversational interactions—reducing friction and improving discovery outcomes.
Our AI chatbot is now integrated directly into the app as a discovery companion. It helps users articulate preferences, refine search results, and navigate modesty-specific needs through conversational interactions—reducing friction and improving discovery outcomes.
👀Computer Vision Model Advancements:
We’ve enhanced our computer vision models to better recognize modesty-specific attributes such as coverage, fit, opacity, and silhouette. These improvements increase filtering accuracy, reduce reliance on manual tagging, and create more consistent results across brands and retailers.
We’ve enhanced our computer vision models to better recognize modesty-specific attributes such as coverage, fit, opacity, and silhouette. These improvements increase filtering accuracy, reduce reliance on manual tagging, and create more consistent results across brands and retailers.
🏁Onboarding & Preference Capture:
We redesigned onboarding to more effectively capture users’ modesty preferences and style intent from the outset. These inputs directly inform ranking, filtering, and personalization across the search experience, improving relevance from first use.
We redesigned onboarding to more effectively capture users’ modesty preferences and style intent from the outset. These inputs directly inform ranking, filtering, and personalization across the search experience, improving relevance from first use.
🕵️Catalog R&D Initiation:
In parallel, we’ve begun R&D on building our own proprietary product catalog. This effort is focused on improving data consistency, enrichment, and long-term control over product metadata—laying the groundwork for greater scalability, quality, and defensibility as we grow.
In parallel, we’ve begun R&D on building our own proprietary product catalog. This effort is focused on improving data consistency, enrichment, and long-term control over product metadata—laying the groundwork for greater scalability, quality, and defensibility as we grow.
Sneak Peeks
Confidentiality Reminder: This sneak peek is shared exclusively with our investors. As these materials reflect unreleased product features and strategy, we kindly ask that they remain confidential. Sharing them publicly or with third parties could compromise our competitive position—and, by extension, the value of your investment.
Computer Vision Search
Users can upload an image to instantly search for specific items within it—such as a dress, top, or accessory. Our computer vision model analyzes the image to understand visual attributes and product context, while the in-app chatbot can be used alongside the image to refine results through natural-language prompts, enabling a more precise and conversational discovery experience.
Chatbot-Powered Discovery
The MDST chatbot combines natural language understanding with our proprietary search and computer vision systems to translate user intent into highly relevant product results. It enables iterative refinement, preference learning, and contextual recommendations—significantly reducing friction in the discovery process.
Marketing & Commercials
We've continued to build strong momentum across marketing and commercial efforts, with sustained growth across our social channels and increasing engagement from our target audience. Our online community continues to grow month over month, supported by consistent content, refined messaging, and a clearer articulation of MDST Market’s core value proposition.
As part of our go-to-market strategy, we’ve negotiated contracts with five influencers and creators, laying the groundwork for coordinated launch-phase campaigns and broader brand awareness. These partnerships are expected to play a meaningful role in driving early user adoption and trust.
Our app waitlist continues to expand and is now nearing 1,000 signups, providing a strong pipeline of engaged users ahead of our upcoming beta release and Q1 launch.
In parallel, our Community Partnerships Manager has begun actively engaging with creators, brands, and community organizations, initiating early partnership conversations and setting the foundation for longer-term collaboration and growth initiatives.
We continue to iterate on our creative strategy and messaging to ensure alignment with user values, inclusivity, and our differentiated AI-driven approach to discovery.
Administrative
Operationally, we remained focused on maintaining a healthy run rate and strong financial discipline, directing spend toward core product development and go-to-market priorities as we prepare for launch.
During the month, we formally onboarded Haven as our accounting partner and began evaluating firms to support sales tax compliance. In parallel, we continued working closely with our legal counsel to ensure our policies, contracts, and compliance posture are launch-ready.
These steps reflect our ongoing commitment to building a strong operational foundation to support sustainable growth post-launch.
What's Next?
Over the coming month, our primary focus will remain on product execution—specifically strengthening our core AI-driven search experience, which sits at the center of our Q1 launch. We are doubling down on user experience quality and technical rigor to ensure the product is not only intuitive, but meaningfully differentiated.
In parallel, we are beginning the foundational work required to build a defensible data moat. This includes improving how we capture, structure, and learn from user interactions, preference signals, and search behavior—creating a feedback loop that continuously improves relevance, ranking, and personalization over time.
We will continue running hands-on user testing through guided walkthroughs, structured surveys, and iterative feedback cycles, ensuring our product decisions are grounded in real user needs and measurable outcomes.
On the commercial side, we are fine-tuning our go-to-market strategy with a focus on partnerships that are both strategic and scalable. This includes deepening relationships with creators, brands, and community partners to support a focused, high-impact launch.
Together, these efforts position us to enter Q1 with a highly refined product, a clear path toward defensibility, and a go-to-market strategy designed for durable growth.