"Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world," goes a saying often attributed to Marilyn Monroe. M.Gemi, a 15-month-old e-commerce startup, has taken this proposition one step further: Sell beautiful, well-crafted, high-end shoes online without the luxury price tag, and you can conquer the girl.

Armed with a team of data scientists, 15 Italian factories, and $32 million in venture capital, Boston-based M.Gemi wants to shake up the luxury shoe market much like Brooklinen unmade the posh world of 1,000-thread-count bedsheets or Warby Parker upended the business of fashion eyewear. Global sales of high-end shoes total $18 billion annually, according to consulting firm Bain. But the major players operate the way they have for decades, says M.Gemi's co-founder and chief executive officer, Ben Fischman: "They haven't leveraged technology or analytics, and they haven't leveraged a modern supply chain."

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