Clothing rental service startup Taelor raised USD$2.3 M pre-seed round, bringing the sustainability to fast fashion

Taelor, a menswear rental subscription service led by former eBay & Facebook product head Anya Cheng, announced that it has secured $2.3 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round of funding.

Taelor’s lead investor is Bling Capital. The venture capital firm that founded by Ben Ling, an early executive at Google and Meta. Bling has previously invested in more than 10 unicorn companies, including Lyft, Instacart, Square, Airtable, Indiegogo, and Everlane.

Taelor also received investments from Samantha Chien and Kai Huang, the founder of Guitar Hero; Sean Chao, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley Taiwan; Chicago Early, an angel group that focuses on startups with Chicago ties, as well as the co-founder of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Golden Seeds, an investment firm focused on high potential female-led companies.

Taelor also has a group of strategic investors in the fashion, corporate gifting, data analytics, shipping, and sustainability spaces.

Taelor co-founders Phoebe Tan（left）and Anya Cheng（right）/ Photograph : Taelor

Brings you the fashion clothes in a sustainable way

With the booming of fast fashion these years, international clothing brands like Zara, H&M, and Uniqlo open more and more stores all over the world. People start getting used to buying tons of clothes but only wearing them once. The pile of discarded clothes has become a serious environmental problem.

Taelor tries to solve the problem by not only providing a clothing rental subscription service but also hiring top stylists to help pick the clothes. They are trying to leverage AI to pick the clothes for customers.

“The future of menswear is access, not ownership,” said Anya Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Taelor, “Our mission is to help people to look good, achieve goals and save the environment.”

“The younger generation is a lot more fashion conscious because of social media, and they also support sustainability and buy second-hand clothes. That’s why Taelor is really the perfect solution for many young men who want to look good but own less,” said Phoebe Tan, co-founder and COO of Taelor.

When customers first sign up at Taelor, they fill out a style questionnaire and then receive a personal consultation with one of Taelor’s stylists. Then the stylists, along with artificial intelligence, select clothes for the customers based on their personal preferences. The clothes are shipped directly to customers, who can either wear them for weeks and return them or purchase them for up to 70% off the regular retail price. Customers then receive another box of clothes.

For a flat monthly fee of $88 per month, customers get up to two boxes of clothes per month.Four items will be in each box, including dress shirts, jackets, polo shirts, henley shirts and more. Taelor plans to add pants to its offerings soon. Dry cleaning and shipping are free both ways — making the process of renting and returning clothing effortless.

In addition to serving individual customers, Taelor plans to work with corporations to offer its subscription service as a perk or gift for employees and clients, as well as leverage its unique data to help brands and retailers predict trends and reduce unsold inventory.

“Taelor is like a launching pad for clothing brands,” Cheng said. “As a SaaS data company, we help brands and retailers test products, find new customers, and discover consumers’ true preferences.”

Taelor won first place at legendary investor Tim Draper’s startup competition, Draper Demo Day. / Photograph : Taelor

Taelor has received lots of attention and recognition. The company won first place at legendary investor Tim Draper’s startup competition, Draper Demo Day. They also got selected into 500 Global accelerator in Taiwan.

〔Original :Meet Global〕
https://meet-global.bnext.com.tw/articles/view/47676