Faircado successfully raised €3 million in a pre-seed fundraising round for its cutting-edge AI-powered second-hand shopping assistant.
Investors:
Europe’s top climate VC firm, the World Fund, spearheaded the investment. Notable contributions to the round also come from Impact Shakers, Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, and Northzone through the Slush 100 Startup Prize.
In line with a recent wave of funding for Faircado, the round includes €1 million from Impact Shakers, €1 million from Slush VCs, and €1 million from the World Fund. BackBone Ventures, Earlybird, and Minc accelerators, along with angel investors from Atomico and Peak Capital, contributed an initial €750k investment to the overall €3 million total. Investors made this investment in November 2022. The new funding will support the team’s growth as well as the company’s geographic expansion into the French and UK markets and the advancement of its image recognition technology.
The Berlin-based startup, founded in 2022 by Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael and Ali Nezamolmaleki, provides users with an AI-powered browser extension that searches a database of over 60 million products from 50 different partners, including eBay, Back Market, Grailed, Rebuy, and Vestiaire Collective, to automatically find used alternatives when shopping online.
Faircado’s in-house image-matching algorithms leverage cutting-edge AI to compile important data such as product photos, titles, and brands to deliver consumers personalized resale recommendations. Faircado uses both a revenue-per-click and a commission-based business model, charging a fixed price for each user referred to partner sites and earning a percentage commission on sales made through their platform.
Analysts anticipate that the second-hand shopping market will surpass fast fashion by 2030, driven primarily by Gen Z’s desire for sustainable consumption. But as of right now, just 7% of the world’s resources are recycled in a circular economy; this percentage has been falling since 2018 as a result of increased material extraction.
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By encouraging the purchase of “pre-owned” goods, Faircado seeks to increase this recycling rate and solve the need for practical and environmentally beneficial purchasing options, putting re-commerce at the forefront of e-commerce’s sustainable future. At the moment, Faircado’s extension offers customers like-for-like products in books, electronics, and fashion across over 1,600 websites, from Patagonia and Apple to Amazon and Zalando. Faircado intends to expand its service to include furniture and children’s items after closely examining market demand trends. This move will further disrupt traditional shopping across new sectors.
Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael, co-founder and CEO, stated:
“The World Fund is a perfect partner for Faircado. Their knowledge, wide-ranging network, and dedication to climate technology that supports a regenerative society will be invaluable as we scale our product. Tim’s background in creating and growing profitable companies like Eyeo, the company that created AdBlock, and Ecosia to millions of users and millions in sales has given him a unique perspective on the nexus between circular economy ideas and mass-market consumer technology. Our goal with this most recent funding is to increase the accessibility and mainstreaming of sustainable choices for millions of customers.”
Tim Schumacher, General Partner at the World Fund, said:
“We see immense potential in Faircado’s mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Simply put, we purchase much too much stuff in our culture, but our closets, libraries, and basements are stocked with precisely the items that others desire. However, we frequently overlook this reality. I appreciate it when Faircado alerts me, for example, when I’m buying on Amazon, saying, “Hey, look, this is the same item, only 80% less expensive.”
