Thrift stores are always a gamble. That cool shirt might disappear sooner or later, and there’s no telling where those sturdy jeans are. Sure, some stores or websites try to filter out the bad apples, but it’s hard to get a good deal on the Internet when there are so many options.
Berlin-based Faircado has created a browser extension that aims to solve exactly this problem. The company wants to become the discovery level of second-hand goods and has raised 3 million euros in a funding round led by the World Fund. Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, Northzone, BackBone Ventures, Earlybird and the Minc accelerator also participated.
The idea is pretty simple: the extension uses a combination of image and text matching to suggest second-hand alternatives when you search for a product on sites like Amazon, Zalando, or Patagonia.
For example, if you’re looking for a new iPhone to buy on Amazon, the extension will automatically show you used options on sites like eBay. Currently, the Faircado extension works with electronics, books and clothing.
The company said the extension supports 1,600 sites, including Amazon, Zalando, Patagonia and Apple. These recommendations come from more than 50 partners including eBay, Back Market, Grailed, Rebuy and Vestiaire Collective.
Although you can download and use the Faircado extension from anywhere, the company is focusing on expanding in Germany first and plans to launch in the UK later this year.
The extension is currently in beta with a few thousand users. The company did not disclose the volume of commerce it has generated so far, but it said the average basket size is around €200, with “multiple purchases per user per month.”
Faircado was founded in 2022 by Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael and Ali Nezamolmaleki, who met at Y Comibnator-backed AirHelp.
De Wilde d’Estmael said she got the idea for a startup while thinking about how to make it easier to find second-hand items.
“I’ve been a fan of second-hand items my whole life and have managed to convince my friends to move away from Amazon, IKEA or Zara and adopt a more sustainable way of consuming. When you were looking for something second-hand, the experience was usually time-consuming, impractical, and unsexy. We wanted to make this process more accessible,” she told TechCrunch in a call.
Estmael’s De Wilde said the expansion is the first step in steering consumers towards more sustainable sources of purchases. The company is also looking to develop native mobile applications, targeting the used goods discovery layer.
Tim Schumacher, partner at the World Fund, which invests in green businesses, said decarbonization starts with purchasing fewer new goods, and the fund decided to invest in Faircado because the startup plays an important role in this. process.
“Faircado was almost an accident that we stumbled upon. We’ve been following them since they started, and the progress they’ve made on the AI front has been good too. So we decided it was a great investment,” he told TechCrunch in a call. He added that the expansion also serves to ease friction related to changing consumer behavior around purchasing second-hand goods.
Faircado makes money through affiliate sales and on a click-through basis. The company is not yet cash flow positive and wants to focus on growth for the moment, said De Wilde d’Estmael.
The startup said it will use the funding to hire developers and marketing staff, aiming to double its current headcount of 10 by the end of the year. Last year the company recruited Oliver Hale as COO, who previously founded second-hand marketplace Buckit.
The startup competes directly with Buoyant Ventures-backed Beni, which also offers an extension for US-based buyers. There is also Gently, which acts as a second-hand clothing aggregator. Faircado, however, hopes that its positioning in Europe will be a key driver of its growth.
techcrunch
