ThisNext Picks Up Stylehive

It can be said that Jason Calacanis picks ventures that grow, even if he often doesn’t know what they do. Social shopping company ThisNext is no exception. Calacanis, who currently serves on their board and was an early financial backer, but still doesn’t seem to know that affiliate marketing is one of their monetization methods.

Nevertheless, despite such lack of clarity ThisNext continues to grow, announcing today that they have acquired competitor Stylehive for an undisclosed amount. Boasting 60,000 members Stylehive’s caters to a more female audience with products centering on the fashion and beauty markets.

The announcement also heralds the establishment of umbrella company Curatemedia that both companies will operate under. Prior to the acquisition ThisNext closed a Series C round of funding for $1.2 million dollars. The capital will be used to develop additional shopping tools, facilitate commerce functionality and to fuel the growth of Curatemedia into new verticals and categories.

They do have some heavy competition in the “social shopping” sphere with such sites as CNET Reviews, Kaboodle and Stylefeeder which was recently acquired by Time Inc. That of course is without taking into account the shopping that occurs on social networks like Facebook. Obviously this growth in social shopping proves CEO and Co-founder of Like.com Munjal Shah wrong when he stated that visual search was killing social search. That battle appears to be far from over.