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The fashion industriousness has a huge trouble : Despite many give back detail being unworn or undamaged , a lot , if not the absolute majority , end up in the trash . An estimated9.5 billion poundsof tax return ended up in landfills in 2022 alone , according to data from return key logistics software companionship Optoro . New York - based ( Re)vive wants to help companies find a full end for their render items .
( Re)vive takes in product that retailers have view as too damaged to deal and fixes them up — whether that imply washing them , reattaching a button , or lint - rolling off some dog hair’s-breadth . The items are then sold through various channel , and ( Re)vive ’s data platform aid retailers monitor and handle their waste .
The rudimentary tech is quite interesting . The inauguration ’s founding father and CEO , Allison Lee , said the caller ’s software lets its employees separate , label and square off the outcome of a corner of return items in about three minutes . The software program will also show retailers how much of a certain SKU — a product ’s identifying identification number — was returned and how much money they can potentially make from redeem and selling the return items .
Refreshed items that are still in season promontory back to stores , while ( Re)vive deal out - of - season goods on third - party channels like eBay and Poshmark on behalf of retailer and take a cut from each sale .
Lee said the company is seeing strong requirement now and require it to develop as air pressure continues to mount on retailers to clean up and minimize their impact on the environment . She added that company are now under more scrutiny about damages from investors and shareholders — they ca n’t write those loss off as part of doing commercial enterprise as they used to .
There is a lot to like about this advance . For one , I have it away tech that helps companies be more sustainable and reduce their environmental impact , even if that is n’t their goal . Some ship’s company may act upon with ( Re)vive because of its sustainability angle , but many more will probably contract up due to shareowner pressure or to improve their bottom lines . It ’s skillful that they can mitigate their environmental impact at the same time .
It ’s also a relatively light lift for companies to apply such a table service . Retailers already charge out their “ damaged ” items from stores , and Lee joke that turn with ( Re)vive is as easy as just switch the shipping recording label on the box seat to a ( Re)vive warehouse instead of a company ’s own .
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( Re)vive has been seeing honest demand , and Lee told TechCrunch that the companionship ’s gross grew intimately 15x last yr . But it hire a while for the team to land on its current scheme .
The company today is very different from what it started up as : Founded in 2017 as an in - stock tailoring help known as Hemster , the troupe raise a seminal fluid round and was used in more than 300 store before the pandemic bring the business sector to a halt .
“ I thought I observe production - market convulsion and set up all these millions of dollars , and then upshot happen and it ’s like what do you do now ? ” Lee recalled .
Next , she launched an online resort portal purport at consumers . But when the team realized the program was for the most part being used instead by retailers trying to repair inventory in their warehouse , they decided to swivel . Since the switching , ( Re)vive says it has helped company write $ 23 million in GMV and has saved 150,000 garment from landfills .
“ When we were doing Hemster , we were a nice - to - have , ” Lee said . “ If you are a dainty - to - have , you do n’t have precedency in [ a retailer ’s ] roadmap . Once we swivel , we became a must - have . ”
( Re)vive has now raised $ 3.5 million in seed financial support , moderate by Equal Ventures and Hustle Fund , with participation from Banter Capital , Coalition Operators , Mute VC and others . Lee said the company was n’t planning on put forward speculation capital after their late pivot but decided to after it was approached by Equal Ventures , which had done in - deepness research on the category for months .
I was concerned in this one because I deal out with return and damages for years as a sales familiar at Anthropologie . I would process many returns that terminate up as damages due to the tiniest thread pull in or imperfection . What ’s worse , employees were n’t allowed to take these items home either — doing that would get you mechanically fire — mean I would gaze at a growing tidy sum of nearly everlasting token channelize to a landfill every single sidereal day .
And my position is that of one employee , at one store , on one shift , at one retailer . It ’s hard to fathom how much all that wasted textile adds up to . Hopefully ( Re)vive can make a meaningful ding .
