Marissa Mayer Is Closing Her Sunshine Startup Lab

Sunshine, a consumer AI startup founded by former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in 2018, has encountered challenging times.

The small startup is closing its doors, with its assets being transferred to a newly formed entity by Mayer, named Dazzle, as revealed in an email obtained by WIRED. On September 17, Mayer notified Sunshine shareholders that Dazzle is officially established and poised to acquire Sunshine’s assets.

The agreement awaits approval from shareholders, including Sunshine cofounder Enrique Muñoz Torres, Norwest Venture Partners, Felicis Partners, Ron Conway’s SV Angel, the PR firm Archetype Agency, and others. As per sources familiar with the matter, 99 percent of shareholders had signed by Sunday afternoon. Mayer is the company’s largest shareholder and investor.

While the email did not detail Dazzle’s intended purpose, sources indicate that Mayer is concentrating on a new type of AI personal assistant. Reports suggest that Sunshine’s approximately 15 employees are expected to transition to roles at Dazzle.

“After thorough consideration, Sunshine’s management, along with 99.99% of its shareholders, concluded that the best route forward for the company was to sell to Dazzle AI, a new entity that is already incorporated and backed by committed funding,” Mayer stated through a spokesperson. “As Sunshine’s largest investor, shareholder, and CEO, Marissa is proud of the accomplishments of the team and eagerly anticipates leveraging that momentum in new ventures with Dazzle.”

Mayer established Sunshine, initially known as Lumi Labs, in 2018 following her five-year effort to revitalize Yahoo. Before becoming Yahoo’s CEO, Mayer had a distinguished career at Google, where she was the 20th employee. She played a pivotal role in designing the interface for Google Search, along with contributions to Google Maps and Google AdWords.

The concept for Sunshine’s inaugural product, an application for contact management, emerged from Mayer’s own journey in navigating her extensive network of Silicon Valley leaders while launching her business. That application, Sunshine Contacts, debuted in 2020, after the startup secured $20 million in venture capital and additional personal investments from Mayer.

Initially, the Sunshine app faced criticism over potential violations of user privacy. The app, leveraging AI to detect and consolidate duplicate contacts in users’ phones, was also sourcing data from Whitepages to automatically append home addresses.

In 2024, Sunshine introduced a photo-sharing app named Shine. Similar to Sunshine Contacts, Shine was largely regarded as unsuccessful.