The Berlin start-up Reverse.supply, founded at the beginning of last year, has announced the completion of a 5 million euro seed financing round. This is already the second round of financing, as the recommerce company had already closed a mid-six-figure pre-seed financing in August 2021.
While it was supported in the first round by well-known business angels such as Outfittery founder and CEO Julia Bösch, Optiopay CEO and Rebuy founder Marcus Börner and the existing investor Push Ventures, the early stage venture capitalist Capnamic is in the millions for the first time in the most recent round added as well as the Dutch Founders Fund alongside Bösch and Börner.
“We are impressed with the speed and quality with which Reverse.supply has brought an already market-defining product to market that perfectly suits the needs of today’s customers and the fashion industry. The team around the industry-experienced founders Janis, Max and Konrad has everything it takes to build an international category leader in recommerce,” comments Christian Knott, Managing Partner of Capnamic, in a statement.
White-label software platform for second-hand integration
Founded by Janis Künkler, Max Große Lutermann and Konrad Hosemann, the company enables fashion brands and marketplaces to access the second-hand market for their own products by offering a white-label software platform for setting up an integrated second-hand shop and for retailers: takes over the quality control, pricing and logistics of the second-hand products with an AI-driven grading system.
The used goods are then seamlessly displayed in the brand design next to the new products in the customer’s web shop and can be bought via the standard checkout of the respective shop. In addition to customer goods, returns and B-goods can also be processed and placed in Preloved shops.
By taking over the complete recommerce process, companies can easily monitor the quality and longevity of their products even after they leave their own production facilities at the first sale. This enables you to open up new target groups, lead customers back to your own web shop and gain control over the entire life cycle of your products in the long term. In addition, the extended life cycle of a single piece of clothing saves resources that would be incurred in new production.
“We are experiencing a turning point: Consumers are increasingly viewing the possession of clothing as only temporary. So far, many fashion brands have not reacted to this and have left the entire second-hand market to C2C marketplaces. This is not surprising, because the resale of fashion is more expensive than other product groups and with low margins. We are changing that,” confirms Max Große Lutermann, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Reverse.supply.
Armedangels launches resell platform with Reverse.supply
Reverse.supply is already used by well-known brands such as the Viennese fair fashion label Dariadéh and the sustainable Cologne label Armedangels. The latter had already started its own resell platform a few weeks ago with the help of Reverse.supply, through which customers can sell their own Armedangels clothing that they no longer wear or buy second-hand clothing from the brand.
“Armedangels is thus contributing to the necessary change to wear clothes for as long as possible and with ‘Resell’ is clearly taking a stand against the biggest challenges in terms of wasting resources: environmental pollution and the social impact on producers and consumers,” the label explained for the introduction in a communication.
The latest round of funding marks the official market launch of Reverse.supply and will be used to further build the team, technological platform and customer acquisition.
“Recommerce is crucial to make the fashion industry more sustainable and has become a must-have for brands to meet contemporary customer needs. With Reverse.supply, we will build the leading international recommerce-as-a-service provider and significantly shape the fashion industry. Thanks to the trust of strong investors like Capnamic, we can now invest even more in our growth,” says Janis Künkler, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Reverse.supply.