Vancouver fashion startup Wantering acquired by Clique Media Group

Vancouver fashion startup Wantering has been acquired by Clique Media Group, an American company whose digital fashion empire also includes Who What Wear, My Domaine and Byrdie.

Founded by Matt Friesen, Nicholas Molnar, Nick Cairns and Jesse Sherlock, Wantering billed itself as “the web’s fashion search engine”, using Big Data and machine learning to create a rich dataset of consumers’ tastes.

Aggregating 150 eCommerce sites into one point of connection for shoppers, Wantering ranked products based on trends that surfaced in online fashion communities like Pinterest, Polyvore and Tumblr.

“Our vision at Wantering has always been to transform the way shoppers search and discover clothes,” Friezen said in an email to TechCrunch. “Clique Media Group shares that vision, and we’re excited to combine their strong editorial voice and ability to build incredible brands with our technology to redefine mobile shopping.”

Wantering eventually established office presences outside Vancouver, in New York and Los Angeles.

Wantering expanded its Wantering Insider Network (WIN), an invite-only community of style bloggers, last summer through the acquisition of online fashion community StyledOn, which counted 30,000 style bloggers in its user base.

Started in 2006 by former ELLE editors Katherine Power and Hillary Kerr, Clique Media Group have pioneered the “shoppable content” phenomenon now driving online commerce, spawning three websites and a Clique Influencer Network.

Who What Wear launched a UK version of their site this week, and in October announced a collaboration with Target launching an inexpensive line of Who What Wear-branded clothing.

Clique Media plans to launch a mobile commerce platform in 2016.

In August, Who What Wear closed an $8 million US Series B funding round.

Terms of the Wantering acquisition were not disclosed.