Vestiaire Collective, a Paris-based luxury second hand clothing site, just closed a new funding round that has pushed the company to a valuation of $1 billion+. This new round was led by Vitruvian Partners and included existing investors Eurazeo through Eurazeo Growth and Idinvest Venture, Bpifrance’s Large Venture Fund, Conde Nast, Fidelity International and Korelya Capital.
The e-commerce startup’s new capital will be used to scale up and expand globally, according to the company’s latest investor statement. The firm has already rolled out a global resale service in Europe and plans to expand its offerings to the U.S. and Asia later this year.
It also plans to grow its tech function and become more sustainable, according to the press release. The firm is aiming to become a B Corp certified business and empower its employees to take part in social projects through 15 hours of volunteering time every month.
As the fashion industry continues to overconsume and waste materials, it is facing huge challenges in terms of the environment. This is why the company has launched a new initiative to help brands integrate circularity into their business model.
Using a brand approved program, Vestiaire Collective is helping brands to decouple their economic profit from the use of natural resources, while ensuring sustainability of the brand’s production process and their supply chain. The company’s ‘Brand Approved’ program, which recently launched in collaboration with Kering House Alexander McQueen, enables brands to incorporate circularity into their business models and increase reuse and re-sale of their products.
The company also wants to drive a global community of ’fashion activists’ to help drive the change by educating its members on adopting a ’1 in, 1 out’ behaviour and encouraging them to choose alternative ways to consume their wardrobes through tools such as the ‘fashion activist badge’ and empowering them with features such as a standardized shipping process.
Vestiaire Collective is the leading global app for desirable pre-loved fashion, and is dedicated to transforming the way the world views clothing by promoting the circular fashion movement as an alternative to overproduction and overconsumption. The platform provides its highly engaged ’fashion activist’ community with inspiration, tools and features to lead the change as they sell and buy unique pre-loved pieces from each other’s wardrobes.
Its rare and desirable inventory of 3 million items includes 140,000 new listings per week, while it claims to have over 7.5 million fashion savvy members in 50 countries worldwide.
Unlike its competitors, the company screens all the items on sale before they hit its website. This helps to improve the user experience, reduce fraud and create a more transparent marketplace.
In addition to this, it has a direct shipping service that allows people to get reimbursed if they receive an item that isn’t as described on the site. The startup has had a lot of success in Europe with this feature and is now expanding it to the United States and Asia.
