Artificial intelligence-powered secondhand shopping assistant Faircado has raised roughly $3.26 million in a pre-seed funding round led by World Fund, Europe’s leading climate tech investor. Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA and Northzone, via the Slush 100 Startup Prize, and Impact Shakers also participated in the round.
The Berlin-based green-tech startup founded in 2022 by climate activist Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael and software engineer Ali Nezamolmaleki offers an AI-driven Chrome extension that helps consumers automatically find secondhand alternatives while browsing online. The extension pulls from a database of 60-plus million products from 50 different partners, including eBay, Grailed and Vestiaire Collective. The extension currently supports 1,600 websites, ranging from Amazon and Apple to Patagonia and Zalando.
“We see immense potential in Faircado’s mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy,” Tim Schumacher, general partner at World Fund, said. “Simply put, our society buys too much stuff, while our basements, bookshelves and closets are full of exactly the stuff other people want. At the same time, we tend to forget about this fact, which is why I love when Faircado automatically tells me while shopping on Amazon, for example, that, ‘Wait a minute, here’s the same stuff used, in great condition, yet 80 percent cheaper.’”
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The round combines 1 million euros ($1.09 million) from World Fund, $1.09 million from Slush VCs and roughly $163,000 from Impact Shakers. The total $3.26-million figure included an initial investment of 750,000 euros (about $815,000) from BackBone Ventures, Earlybird and Minc accelerators, as well as Peak Capital and Atomico’s angel investors, among others, in November 2022.
Faircado said the “fresh capital” will fund team expansion, geographical growth into UK and French markets and further development of its image recognition technology.
Faircado’s in-house image-matching algorithms utilize advanced AI to gather the necessary details—think product images, titles and brands—to give users tailored resale recommendations. Using a revenue-per-click and commission-based model, the secondhand champion said it earns a percentage commission on sales generated through its platform to partner sites while charging a fixed fee for each user redirected to those platforms.
“World Fund is an ideal partner for Faircado. Their expertise, expansive network and commitment to climate tech that bolsters a regenerative world will be instrumental as we scale our product,” de Wilde d’Estmael said. “With this latest funding, we aim to make sustainable choices more accessible and mainstream for millions of consumers.”