Faircado raises $3 million to encourage people to buy used goods

Shopping for used clothes is always a risk. That cool shirt might get washed out sooner or later, and there’s no telling where those durable jeans are. Sure, some stores or websites try to filter out the bad apples, but it’s hard to find a good deal online when there are so many options.

Berlin-based Faircado has created a browser extension that aims to solve exactly this problem. The company aims to become a second-hand goods discovery platform and has raised €3 million in a round led by World Fund. Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, Northzone, BackBone Ventures, Earlybird and Minc accelerator also participated.

The idea is quite simple: the extension uses a combination of image and text matching to suggest used 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 from 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 over 50 partners, including eBay, Back Market, Grailed, Rebuy and Vestiaire Collective.

While the Faircado extension can be downloaded and used from anywhere, the company is focusing on expansion in Germany first and plans to launch it in the UK later this year.

The extension is currently in beta and is used by several thousand users. The company did not reveal how many transactions it has generated so far, but 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 AirHelp powered by Y Combinator.

De Wilde d’Estmael said she came up with the idea to start the startup while wondering how to make it easier to find used things.

“I have been a fan of second-hand items all my life and somehow managed to convince my friends to move away from Amazon, IKEA and Zara and adopt a more sustainable way of consuming. When you were looking for something second-hand, it was usually time-consuming, inconvenient and unsexy. We wanted to make the process more accessible,” she told TechCrunch over the phone.

De Wilde d’Estmael said the extension is a first step in pointing consumers to more sustainable sources of purchases. The company also plans to develop native mobile applications focused on the second-hand goods discovery layer.

Tim Schumacher, a partner at World Fund, which invests in green companies, said decarbonization starts with people buying fewer new goods, and the fund decided to invest in Faircado because the startup plays a big role in this process.

“Faircado was almost an accident that we stumbled upon. We have been following them since their early days and the progress they have made on the AI ​​front has also been good. So we decided it was a great investment,” he told TechCrunch during a phone interview. He added that the extension also aims to ease friction from changing consumer behavior around purchasing second-hand goods.

Faircado makes money from affiliate sales and clicks. The company has yet to report positive cash flow and currently wants to focus on growth, de Wilde d’Estmael said.

The startup announced that it will use the funds to hire programmers and marketing staff, and it intends to double its current employment of 10 people by the end of the year. Last year, the company hired Oliver Hale as chief operating officer, who previously built second-hand marketplace Buckit.

The startup competes directly with Buoyant Ventures-backed Beni, which also offers an extension for US customers. There is also Gently, which serves as an aggregator of used clothing. However, Faircado hopes that its position in Europe will be a key growth factor.