Issue #43 [Special retail]: Decarbonizing fashion!
Featuring Vert Science, Simple Switch, GIFTD
ClimateRaise is a newsletter for our network that showcases early-stage climate startups led by women, non-binary and gender non-conforming founders, and connects them with climate ecosystem partners.
Startups featured are actively raising. The newsletter is short and to the point. We want to provide you with useful information, not flood your inbox with yet another lengthy publication.
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Featured Companies
Vert Science
#️⃣Retail, Apparel, Supply Chain
Vert Science gives fashion brands the visibility and actionable insights to decarbonize their supply chain and produce net zero emissions apparel. The company is developing a global IoT network in order to collect precise carbon measurement data to enable brands and their suppliers to collaboratively set and meet climate targets.
Reformation, the leading sustainable fashion brand with $100M+ revenue, is a paid customer involved in Vert Science product building. They are currently onboarding three apparel suppliers serving 1,500 brands and have a potential pipeline of $175K+ ARR. 100+ brands are present in the Vert Science Slack.
Co-Founder & CEO: Haley Boyd
Co-Founder & CTO: Rubi Soares
HQ: Santa Barbara, CA
Current funding stage: Pre-Seed
Company Asks: The team would love to connect with fashion brands that have 25+ employees and are sourcing lower impact materials (organic, recycled, etc). They invite them to join their free slack community here.
Simple Switch
#️⃣Retail, Marketplace
Simple Switch is an online marketplace for ethical and sustainable shopping. They're on a mission to shift the $1T+ in annual online spending to products with positive social and environmental impact, by making it easy for businesses and individuals to shop online in alignment with their values. The company pivoted to a B2B model in 2022 and is now expanding to enterprise level sales. Simple Switch is B Corp Certified, Climate Neutral, Plastic Neutral.
Co-Founder & CEO: Rachel Kois
HQ: Denver, CO
Current funding stage: Pre-Seed
Crunchbase link
Company Asks: They would love introductions to industry partners providing sustainability solutions B2B to cross promote their offerings to their corporate clients. They are looking for insights/mentorship on sustainable product sourcing at enterprise scale and referrals to candidates for executive assistant, lead generation & marketing, and operations & logistics roles.
GIFTD
#️⃣Fashion tech, Marketplace
GIFTD is a new marketplace app to give your clothes a second life with a gamification/social focus. The founders vision is to build a peer-to-peer gifting marketplace with a delivery and premium subscription model, that works as an easier and more fun alternative to re-sale platforms such as Poshmark or VINTED.
Since launch in December 2021, the first 5000+ users show a fast conversion from upload to pick up and much higher allocation efficiency than resale platforms. With an initial 2500+ transactions, they have already replaced a significant number of new clothing purchases and saved an approximate 57 tons of CO2.
Co-Founder & CEO: Hannah Kromminga
Co-Founder & CTO: Michael Gegg
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Current funding stage: Pre-Seed
Resources
LACI Incubation Program
LACI is launching a new recruitment cycle for their Incubation Program. Applications are open until **January 6th, 2023**. The program’s benefits can be found here. Startups are invited to apply here.
Community highlights
Queen of Raw (Issue # 9), a company specializing in recouping value from excess inventory, has raised funding from Future Planet Capital (“FPC”), the international venture capital and impact investor with ~$400M of committed capital. Congrats to the team!