Cornerstone participates in $3m seed round into By Rotation, a social fashion rental platform.
The round, led by venture capital firm Redrice Ventures included Closed Loop Partners, True Global, Magnus Rausing and other leading angel investors.
By Rotation, the UK’s leading social fashion rental and resale app, has raised $3 million (£2.55 million) in seed funding in a bid to pursue and scale rapid growth. Founder Eshita Kabra launched By Rotation in October 2019 and, despite the pandemic, has since built a fast-growing community of over 200,000 lenders and renters (or “Rotators”) across the UK, coming together to share over 25,000 items from their wardrobes. The app, often dubbed as ‘the Instagram of fashion rental’ has a communal wardrobe worth over £10m in retail value already, with no inventory management on part of the app and latest season items being added daily by Rotators.
By Rotation is taking on fashion consumption and sustainability with a fresh perspective and defying the traditional fashion rental landscape by steering away from capital-intensive, logistics-heavy, and retail-centric methods. It promises a new way to consume fashion and as the only purely P2P rental player in the UK, its focus is on community while positioning itself as a social network. Not only does it allow its users to rent (and buy) quality pieces at a fraction of retail price, it also economically empowers them to monetise their wardrobes. With the projected global sharing market said to be valued at $1.5tr (BCC Research), the opportunity for By Rotation to grow is ripe.
Wilfred Fianko, co-founder of Cornerstone Partners commented:
“By Rotation represents a fantastic opportunity to participate in a global online fashion rental market which is estimated to grow exponentially in the short term. We are extremely pleased to be part of this journey and delighted to be working with Eshita and team. We look forward to supporting the business in the coming years.”
Eshita Kabra, Founder of By Rotation comments:
“The moment I was introduced to Cornerstone, I had a very good feeling about them. They have a very high level of conviction in the founders they back, and they have been incredibly supportive in our fundraising journey. I am very excited about our future together and view them as a founder-first investor.”
On the Redrice Ventures team is former global CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi, Robert Senior and operating advisor Arnaud Massenet, early-stage Board Member and investor at Net-a-Porter, while Riccardo Pozzoli was an early-stage investor at Depop and Caroline Brown of Closed Loop Partners has spent over two decades in the fashion industry. Prior to joining CLP, Caroline was CEO of Donna Karan International (DKI) and DKNY, for LVMH. Her appointment on the Board is an indicator of By Rotation’s expansion plans and commitment to a fully circular business model.
Female entrepreneurs’ share of the UK’s multi billion-pound venture capital funding has stayed stubbornly below 2 per cent for most of the past decade and only 1.7% of capital went to entrepreneurs from Black, East Asian, South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds. As an immigrant female founder, Kabra hopes to inspire others while keeping a focus on the sharing and circular economy as a fresh approach to the fashion rental market via community and technology.
2021 was a momentous year for fashion rental, as the concept became widely accepted and championed by mainstream consumers and media, and By Rotation intends to continue driving the demand for rental and resale beyond the UK.
If you are a founder who is seeking investment or interested in learning more about Cornerstone Partners, please visit our website at www.cornerstonepartners.co.uk.
For more information, please contact:
Wilfred Fianko, Co-Founder, Cornerstone Partners, wilfred@cornerstonepartners.co.uk
