 | |
| Industry | Fashion |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founder |
|
| Defunct | 2016 |
| Key people | Kasper Vardup, CEO |
| Website | thefashion |
The Fashion was a website and discovery platform that existed from 2013 to 2016. It aggregated a multitude of fashion sites into one interface. Its aim was to provide users a streamlined shopping experience. The Fashion maintained localized sites for users in the United Kingdom, United States and Denmark, and offered a selection from over 150 online shops with 1,000 brands. The company was headquartered in London and Copenhagen. Co-founder Kasper Vardup served as its CEO.
History
The Fashion was founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneurs Ida Adler-Olsen, Kasper Vardup, and Troels Knak-Nielsen. Olsen was previously a project manager at the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship and a partner at Echo.it, an enterprise social network startup. Vardup previously founded phone recycling company GreenWire and business incubator Startup Bootcamp. He is also a partner at venture capital firm Rainmaking. Knak-Nielsen previously worked with Vardup as chief technology officer at GreenWire.
The Fashion received $400,000 in angel investment from Rainmaking and angel investor Kristian Byrge in 2013. The site officially launched in the United Kingdom, United States, and Denmark in May 2014. In November of that year The Fashion closed a $1.7 million seed funding round led North East Venture Capital and the Danish Growth Fund. The funding round was intended to help the site expand into Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands.
In 2016, its website announced that The Fashion had gone out of business, writing "We're sorry, but we've turned off the lights. It was three years of great fun and fashion, but no good thing lasts for ever."
Website and business model
The Fashion aggregated information from various fashion websites and online stores to allow consumers an overview of available clothing and accessories and compare prices without visiting individual retailers’ sites. The site also updates in real time information from retailers such as price or amount of items in stock. After a consumer selected an item they wish to purchase, The Fashion redirected the user to the retailer's website where they can finalize their purchase. The site was paid a percentage of the total sales price of each sale made by the retailer.
The site maintained localized websites for users in the United Kingdom, United States, and Denmark. It used algorithms and machine learning technology to tailor to individual users content such as the type of fashion products or styles displayed by the site. Users could filter displayed items by designer, brand, color, size, and price. The Fashion curated fashion trends and updates on a weekly basis for its userbase.
References
- ^ Steve O'Hear (November 13, 2014). "E-Commerce Aggregator Thefashion.com Raises $1.7M For Further European Expansion". Tech Crunch. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
- Dylan Baker (November 13, 2014). "TheFashion.com raises $1.7m for European expansion". Tech City News. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
- "About Us". The Fashion. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
- Rafael Lemarchand (July 9, 2014). "Fashion Platform from Denmark kicks off with $400,000 in Angel Capital". Arctic Startup. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
- ^ Ella Elmegård (November 13, 2014). "Fashion Platform TheFashion.com raises 10 million dollars in venture capital". Trends Online. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- ^ Karsten Deppert (July 9, 2014). "Serial Entrepreneurs Launching a New Search Engine for Fashion". Oresund Startups. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- ^ Thomas Ohr (November 13, 2014). "TheFashion.com raises $1.7M to expand to Northern Europe". EU Startups. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- "Danish fashion portal raises 10 million to go global". Fashion Forums. November 11, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- Ajeet Singh (November 15, 2014). "TheFashion.com Raises $1.7M". Tropical Post. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- ^ Karsten Deppert (November 15, 2014). "TheFashion.com Raises €1.3 M for Expansion in Europe". Oresund Startups. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- "The Fashion is no more". The Fashion. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
- ^ Sanni Jensen (November 10, 2014). "Data Geeks behind global platform for women's fashion". Berlingske. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- Dennis Clausager (November 11, 2014). "Million Capital must make new Danish fashion portal global". Detail Folk. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- ^ Greg Anderson (November 14, 2014). "TheFashion raises €1.37 from North East & the Danish Growth Fund". Artic Startup. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
- "Rainmaking launches online fashion platform in DK, UK". Trends Online. June 23, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2015.