Thrift shopping is always a gamble. That cool shirt could be washed out sooner rather than later, and we don’t know where those rugged jeans have been. Sure, some stores or websites try to filter out the bad apples, but it’s hard to find a good deal online when there are so many options.
based in Berlin Faircado has created a browser extension that aims to solve this very problem. The company wants to become the discovery level for second-hand goods and has raised €3 million in a round led by the World Fund. Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, Northzone, BackBone Ventures, Earlybird and Minc accelerator also participated.
The idea is very simple: The extension uses a combination of image and text matching to suggest owned alternatives when you search for a product on sites like Amazon, Zalando or Patagonia.
For example, if you’re looking for a new iPhone to buy on Amazon, the extension will automatically show you pre-owned options from sites like eBay. Currently, Faircado’s expansion works with electronics, books and clothing.
The company said the extension supports 1,600 websites, including Amazon, Zalando, Patagonia and Apple. These recommendations come from over 50 partners, including eBay, Back Market, Grailed, Rebuy and Vestiaire Collective.
While you can download and use the Faircado extension from anywhere, the company is focusing on expanding to Germany first and plans to launch in the UK later this year.
The extension is currently in beta with a few thousand users. The company did not reveal how much commerce it has driven so far, but said the average basket size is around €200, with “multiple purchases per user, per month”.
Faircado was founded in 2022 by Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael and Ali Nezamolmaleki, who met at Y Combinator-backed AirHelp.
De Wilde d’Estmael said she came up with the idea for the startup when she was thinking about how to make it easier to find used items.
“I was a fan of used cars [things] my whole life and somehow I could actually convince my friends to get away from Amazon, IKEA or Zara and adopt a more sustainable way of consuming. When looking for something used, the experience was usually time-consuming, inconvenient and unsexy. We wanted to make this process more accessible,” he told TechCrunch after a call.
De Wilde d’Estmael said the expansion is the first step in directing consumers to more sustainable sources of purchase. The company is also looking to develop native mobile apps, targeting the discovery level for used goods.
Tim Schumacher, a partner at the World Fund, which invests in green companies, said decarbonisation starts with people buying fewer new goods and the fund decided to invest in Faircado as the startup plays a big role in that. procedure.
“Faircado was almost an accident we got into. We have been following them since their early days and the progress they have made on the AI front has also been good. So we decided it was perfect for investment,” he told TechCrunch after a call. He added that the expansion also serves to mitigate the friction of changing consumer behavior about buying used goods.
Faircado earns money from affiliate sales and clicks. The company is not yet cash-flow positive and wants to focus on growth right now, de Wilde d’Estmael said.
The startup said it will use the funding to hire developers and marketing staff, aiming to double its current headcount of 10 by the end of the year. The company last year brought on Oliver Hale as COO, who previously built the used Buckit marketplace.
The startup directly competes with Buoyant Ventures-backed Beni, which also offers an extension for US-based buyers. There’s also Gently, which acts as an aggregator for used clothes. However, Faircado hopes that its European positioning will be a key driver of its growth.
