Singapore-based Refash gets US$294K seed funding to help women clear their wardrobe
The round was led by Tri5 Ventures, with participation from Tinkbig Ventures and an undisclosed angel investor
Refash, a fast fashion resale and hybrid retail platform for women to buy and sell pre-loved clothing items, announced that it has raised a seed round of S$400,000 (US$294,323). The round was led by Tri5 Ventures, with participation from Malaysia-based Tinkbig Ventures and an undisclosed angel investor.
A graduate of a recent SPH Plug and Play accelerator programme, the startup aims to help women clear their wardrobe of unwanted items such as clothing, bags, and accessories. This seemingly trivial issue actually has some environmental consequences, with Singaporeans disposing up to 41.5 million kilogram (8 kilogram per person) of unwanted clothing each year.
“The disposing of so much clothing is a real waste, literally. Rather than just throwing away, I believe in the immense potential in the problems we are solving – bursting closets, clothes wastage and rising landfills to dispose these clothes,” said Refash CEO and Founder Aloysius Sng.
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Refash also sees an opportunity in the growing acceptance of buying and using pre-loved clothing, and that the existing resale app “may have only tapped on a mere five per cent of women who are looking to sell their unwanted clothes.”
The startup created a system where users who wish to clean their closets just have to pack the unwanted items and have them picked up by the Refash team. The team will then sell the items on the platform.
It claims to have sold more than 30,000 pre-loved items and amassed close to S$400,000 (US$294,323) sales since it was launched in January 2016.
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Refash plans to use the new funding to enhance its technology, both on its website and back-end inventory system. It also plans to build on its B2B network of resellers to facilitate quicker movement of the items they receive for both internal and regional consumption.
It is also looking forward to launching in Malaysia by end of the year with Tinkbig Ventures.
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