Funding to help empower millions of SMEs with AI-driven store management

LOS ANGELES — Sept. 23, 2025 — Genstore, an emerging startup known for its AI-native, intelligence-driven approach to e-commerce operations, has recently completed its $10 million seed funding round. The round was led by Weimob, a leading SaaS enterprise with deep roots in the e-commerce and retail sectors, with participation from Lighthouse Founders’ Fund.

This marks Genstore’s first round of funding since its establishment in late 2024. Junwei Huang, cofounder and president of Genstore, stated, “Weimob’s deep expertise in digital transformation and its proven track record in AI deployment align closely with Genstore’s founding vision. This round of funding will be used to accelerate product development and drive market expansion. Through extensive user research and feedback collection, we have identified a range of needs among merchants. We will continue to iterate and enhance our product capabilities to support the efficient and intelligent creation of online stores.”

A new category: AI-native commerce

Genstore is AI-native from the ground up, leveraging technology that helps merchants efficiently build and manage their online businesses. Centered around the concept of AI-native commerce, the company integrates deep, end-to-end e-commerce expertise into a suite of intelligent assistant agents. Its tagline, “Start selling online with just one prompt,” reflects its mission to simplify the entire process.

Genstore’s website immediately reveals its key differentiation: an AI-powered, conversation-based workflow. This departs fundamentally from the visual/template-driven models of competitors, elevating users from “operators” to “commanders.” 

Genstore lets merchants launch a store in minutes through AI conversation, with no coding or design skills needed. It automates end-to-end operations like product listing, copywriting, customer service and marketing. For example, uploading images triggers auto-generated pages and templates, with conversational guidance through setup and launch.

Unlike traditional platforms that rely on a generic model, Genstore is built from the ground up as AI-native. While competitors add AI as late-stage assistants, they remain limited by non-AI architectures incapable of reshaping core workflows.

“AI-native isn’t a buzzword, it’s a strategic shift,” said Huang. “It’s about creating a true competitive edge. Genstore is leading this change by building an AI-native platform, fundamentally distinct from today’s AI-enhanced solutions.”

Market opportunity and competitive advantage

Genstore has already begun to gain traction in the North American market. Just one month after its launch at the end of August, the platform was named “#1 Product of the Day” on Product Hunt, quickly emerging as a dark horse in the e-commerce space. This early recognition underscores the growing acceptance of Genstore’s AI-powered platform among local merchants. One Product Hunt user commented, “I built a store just by having a simple conversation. Genstore makes launching an online business easier than ever.”

However, beyond the one-time acceleration that Genstore offers in the setup process, its AI agents, including those for store operations, campaign, SEO and design are poised to deliver sustainable competitive advantages for merchants:

• Data moat: Genstore’s AI learns from user interactions and sales data, building a unique knowledge graph that becomes harder to copy as each new merchant strengthens the platform through network effects. 
• Workflow lock-in: Natural language commands create switching costs by reducing reliance on manual workflows, making a return to traditional platforms friction-filled. 
• Speed of iteration: Its AI-native architecture automates development and testing, enabling faster feature deployment and greater responsiveness to market changes.

Globally, there are over 28 million e-commerce stores, and e-commerce sales are expected to exceed $6.8 trillion in 2025, underscoring the surge in independent online selling. The United States is home to 50% of all the e-commerce sites worldwide.

Genstore is reshaping the e-commerce landscape with its core product strategy, by integrating advanced features directly into its core offering, free of charge. On traditional platforms, these features are typically only available through paid third-party apps. This approach tackles a major pain point for merchants: the high cost and complexity of managing multiple external applications.

“By building these essential tools into the platform, Genstore delivers a more compelling value proposition with significantly lower total cost of ownership,” said Huang. “We’re providing online sellers with a more efficient and economical solution.”

Leveraging deep insight into traditional e-commerce, Genstore has adopted a sophisticated two-track go-to-market strategy: attracting and nurturing new sellers through a highly streamlined experience, while simultaneously winning over established merchants dissatisfied with the high costs and inefficiencies of existing platforms. This capital-efficient approach accelerates market penetration and has quickly gained strong investor confidence.

Founding team of seasoned e-commerce professionals

Genstore’s founding team brings a diverse and global background to the table. Although the company was founded in Southern California, its leadership includes veterans from top-tier global e-commerce and software companies.

Among them is Junwei Huang, Genstore’s senior executive, who previously worked at leading tech firms including Intel and Google. This gives the team a unique advantage: deep technical expertise in mainstream AI technologies, firsthand entrepreneurial experience in e-commerce and extensive knowledge of merchant needs.

The rise of large language models, exemplified by ChatGPT in 2024, inspired the team to explore how AI could better serve small and midsize businesses. Driven by this vision, a cross-functional team of seasoned e-commerce professionals came together to build Genstore.

About Weimob

Weimob (stock code: 2013.HK), a leading cloud-based commercial and marketing solutions provider listed in Hong Kong, is dedicated to delivering decentralized digital transformation SaaS products and end-to-end growth services driven by AI technologies. The company supports a wide range of renowned brands, including multinational corporations, in achieving sustainable business growth.

About Lighthouse Founders’ Fund

Lighthouse Founders’ Fund is China’s first multi founders’ fund targeting AI while balancing industrial innovation and global opportunities. Leveraging Lighthouse Capital’s robust industry network built over the past decade, the fund focuses on pre-seed/angel-stage investment opportunities in AI-driven and frontier technology sectors, empowering top entrepreneurs to achieve breakthroughs.

About Genstore

Genstore is an AI-native store builder that helps local businesses launch, run and scale a profitable online store in minutes. Our platform combines instant AI store setup with autonomous growth tools and multi-channel integration, all in a simple conversational interface. The team behind Genstore has decades of e-commerce experience and is committed to transparency, resourcefulness and results.

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