Today, reverse.supply has bagged €5 million for its recommerce-as-a-service solution, which is bringing brands and markets an important chance to become more sustainable and meet contemporary customer needs.
The funding is led by Capnamic with investors The Dutch Founders Fund, Push Ventures and renowned business angels and industry experts such as Julia Bösch (CEO Outfittery) and Marcus Börner (founder rebuy) also joined.
Founded in 2021 by Janis Künkler, Max Große Lutermann and Konrad Hosemann, reverse supply enables fashion brands and marketplaces to tap into the secondhand market via their own products. The Berlin-based startup allows brands to sell products on the secondhand market via their existing sales channels, all through an integrated secondhand store. It’s a visionary solution for the ecommerce sector. Further, reverse.supply facilitates the entire back office and operational process (eg quality control, pricing and logistics), to keep the process as seamless and stress-free as possible.
Janis Künkler, Managing Director and Co-Founder of reverse.supply, explained: “Recommerce is a crucial solution, as it helps the fashion industry to become more sustainable. It is 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 reshape the fashion industry.“
With the platform, fashion brands can build their own trade-in portal for second-hand clothing, powered by an AI-drive grading system for quality control and pricing. Used goods can then be displayed next to new products in the brand’s web store.
The fashion industry is increasingly turning to a circular model as consumers are becoming more and more aware of the detrimental impacts of fast fashion and wasteful clothes consumption. Second-hand and used clothing is a massive market that reverse-supply are tapping into, and helping brands optimize.
Christian Knott, Managing Partner of Capnamic, commented: “We are impressed with the speed and quality with which reverse.supply has built a product that is already shaping the market and a perfect fit for today’s customer and fashion industry needs. The team around the industry experienced founders Janis, Max and Konrad brings everything needed to build an international category leader in recommerce”
By moving into the recommerce space, companies can easily monitor the quality and longevity of their products. They can also develop new target groups, bring customers back to their store and gain long-term oversight over the lifecycle of their products. It naturally lends itself to making ecommerce sustainable for the future.
Max Große Lutermann, Managing Director and Co-Founder of reverse.supply added: “We are experiencing a turning point: consumers increasingly see the ownership of clothing as temporary. So far, many fashion brands have not responded to this, leaving the entire secondhand market to C2C marketplaces. This is not surprising, because in the past, reselling fashion was a rather cost-intensive, low margin business compared to other product groups. We are changing that.”
The fresh capital boost marks the official launch of reverse.supply’s recommerce-as-a-service solution and will also be used to build the team and strengthen the platform. It already counts well-known brands such as Armedangels and dariadéh as their customers and the future looks exciting for this young company.
