American Express and J. Crew CEO invest in Warby Parker

Sunglasses start up Warby Parker has gained two new investors:

American Express and the CEO of J. Crew, Millard S. Dexler, have both contributed to its latest round of financing.

“We’ve tried to be very deliberate in getting people with specific expertise,” said Warby Parker's founder Neil Blumenthal in an interview with 'The Financial Times'. “Nobody knows retail like Mickey. And within financial services, nobody knows a brand more prominent than American Express.”

The start up, dedicated to ell vintage styled eye wear, closed its latest round of financing last month at 41.5 million dollars. In September last year, Warby Parker filed a SEC form for 36.8 million dollars fundraising round. In that occasion, the investment was led by General Catalyst Partners and included other investors such as Spark Capital, Tiger Global Management, Thrive Capital and Menlo Ventures.

Warby Parker has attracted a great deal of attention thanks to its innovative customer service offering: clients can sample five pairs of glasses for five days and then send back the frames they do not want when the time is over.

It is also in talks with Google to provide the frames for the recently unveiled computerised glasses product, according to sourced close to both parties.