By Jason Feifer
When Madison Semarjian was a college freshman, she had an idea for an app: It would be like Tinder, but for clothing. She imagined the app could use AI to learn her personal style and then pull together outfits from a wide range of retailers. If she liked what she saw, she could swipe right and even buy everything. If she hated it, she’d swipe left.
Semarjian couldn’t shake the idea, so she spent all of college creating it—developing the tech, raising money, and signing partnerships with major brands like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Prada. She called the app Mada, and she launched it in January 2020. It was a quick hit with the media and style lovers because nothing like it existed.
