Fashion Rental Platform By Rotation Raises $2.9M

U.K.-based fashion rental platform By Rotation has raised $2.9 million (2.7 million euros) in seed funding as it prepares to expand to the U.S.

As EU Startups reported Friday (April 1), the funding for this round was led by Redrice Ventures with participation from Closed Loop Partners, True Global, Magnus Rausing, Bill Holroyd CBE, DL, June Angelides MBE, Dinika Mahtani of Cherry VC, and Riccardo Pozzoli.

Launched in 2019 by Eshita Kabra, By Rotation lets users rent and buy clothing at below the retail price on a platform that features more than 200,000 lenders and renters across the U.K., sharing more than 25,000 clothing items.

“By Rotation offers a beautiful solution for today’s fashion consumers that merges the best of social media, peer-to-peer commerce for a modernized rental & resale experience,” said Caroline Brown, managing director at Closed Loop Partners. “The result is an elegant platform that reinspires shoppers to build communities around the products they love while keeping them in use longer. This is a great model for the future of commerce.”

In addition to fueling its expansion to the U.S., By Rotation said proceeds from the round will be used to build out its team and accelerate product and community development.

According to the EU Startups report, the company is among the fastest-growing fashion retail platforms, with year-over-year user growth of 550%, peer-to-peer listing growth of 450%, and a 1900% growth in monthly rental revenue.

Read more: Retailers Turn to Clothing Rental as Consumer Acquisition Tactic

This expansion comes at a time when clothing retailers are increasingly turning to rentals to acquire new customers.

“Rental is a great way to meet a consumer in her digital environment,” John Donoghue, senior vice president for corporate development at clothing rental service CaaStle, said in an interview with PYMNTS last year.

Rentals, he said, provide “an access-oriented way, which younger consumers are really habituated to, to experience their apparel in a reasonable and cost-effective way.”

CaaStle, which works with brands like Banana Republic and Express, started its subscription rental model in 2012 with its owned and operated brand Gwynnie Bee.

“The consumer doesn’t know that CaaStle exists,” Donoghue explained. “The consumer only knows that Banana Republic has launched Style Passport,” which lets customers rent three items at a time for $75 per month.