Outfittery closes 22 million dollar funding round

London - Berlin-based curated shopping service Outfittery has raised 22 million dollars in new funding, as it looks to expand within the European curated shopping market and improve its customer experience.

The backing comes from London and New York-based venture capital firm Octopus Ventures, which focuses on identifying “unusually talented entrepreneurs”, as well as the Italian-based U-Start Club. Existing investors Northzone Capital, Highland Europe, Holtzbrinck Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners also joined the round.

Outfittery is an online personal style service for men, which asks its customers simple questions about their clothing style and sizes before their stylists pull together individual outfits. These looks are then shipped to the customer who then keep whatever they like and sends the rest back. The whole service has been designed to make it easier for men to shop for fashion online.

In addition to using personal stylists the curated shopping service also uses technology to offer an individual service to every client. The new funds will mainly be invested in developing its products and further growth.

Outfittery was founded by Anna Alex and Julia Boesch, who is the managing director, in 2012, it employs 300 people, which includes 150 style experts. The service has been used by more than 400,000 men, across eight countries, German, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark.

Outfittery raises 22 million dollars led by UK’s Octopus Ventures

Commenting on the latest round of funding, Boesch said: “In 2012, we founded Outfittery with the mission to revolutionise the shopping experience for men. In a world where clients are faced with way too many options while shopping, we aim to create an individual, and hassle-free shopping experience that is fun.

“This latest financing round affirms that we’re on the right track and we’re very proud to have both Octopus Ventures and U-Start Club involved. With their support, we can now expand our market leadership position in curated shopping and further improve the service experience for our clients.”

Rebecca Hunt of Octopus Ventures added: “The business fits well with our goal of investing in the fastest growing companies from across Europe from the very earliest stages of company formation through to the later stages of growth and expansion.”

Stefano Guidotti, chief executive of U-Start, commented: “The future of fashion retail lies in a highly qualitative, individualised and relevant offering for the client. We are convinced that Outfittery has found the right way to bring exactly this service and quality back into retail, particularly e-commerce and that through this they have found the right way to give men access to fashion in a sleek, frictionless way.”

Outfittery has now raised 59.81 million dollars in total, in five rounds from 12 Investors.

The curated shopping service does have a number of competitors including Modomoto which has been acquiring smaller players in order to expand, while in the UK, Thread offers a similar service using stylists to help men find clothing online.

Images: Outfittery website