According to the European Commission, making the circular economy mainstream will be a crucial contribution to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Circular economics reduces the use of raw materials and cuts carbon emissions. The transition toward the circular economy could bring $4.5 trillion of economic growth by 2030. The circular economy plays a role in how humans will produce, consume and share goods.
Berlin-based Faircado is tackling the needed behaviour change right where consumption has found its new epicenter – e-commerce. Faircado wants to make second-hand goods the first choice of consumers and turn e-commerce into re-commerce.
Pre-seed investment round
Faircado providing the first AI-powered second-hand shopping assistance has raised €500K in a pre-seed round led by BackBone Ventures with Earlybird (that also invested in Ripe, CELUS, Tilt, and Freeverse), Peak Capital, Atomico, 4P Capital, and others.
The German startup will use the funds for further product development and marketing as well as exploring new partnership opportunities in Europe.
“The second-hand market has gained 50% of new buyers in one year in Europe. Our mission is to reduce global waste by shifting the linear economy to a circular economy by making second-hand the first and easiest choice for consumers. Faircado saves hours of search across multiple resale sites and eases the second-hand purchase process. In a few months, we will offer a few more shopping categories such as clothes, kid’s stuff, bikes, furniture, jewelry and other items,” noted Evolena de Wilde d’Estmael, Co-founder and CEO of Faircado.
“With superior technology and UX, the stellar team around founders Evolena and Ali are building something that could make e-commerce become circular. It’s a true game-changer, which is why we have invested,” said Xavier Sarras, Founding Partner at 4P Capital.
How was Faircado founded?
Faircado was founded in 2021 by Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael and Ali Nezamolmaleki. The idea of Faircado came up in 2020 when Evoléna moved to an unfurnished flat in Berlin. She spent hours searching for second-hand furniture and was totally frustrated by the process. She realised that there were nearly 70 different second-hand marketplaces in Germany, but no aggregator could show all the available goods.
Apparently, she joined with her friend Ali, a software engineer with a decade of experience, to launch Faircado, an AI-powered second-hand shopping assistant in the form of a browser extension.
The team comprises six full-time employees from six nationalities and aims to achieve perfect gender equity at all seniority levels.
Second-hand alternative to Amazon!
Faircado is a second-hand alternative to Amazon that works as a browser extension to show customers the second-hand alternatives to items that they are shopping for online. The browser extension centralises all the second-hand offers in its catalogue and compares prices of pre-owned items in different categories, including electronics and books. Whenever a user searches on the marketplace for an item, Faircado displays all second-hand options and bridges the user with the resale shop.
This model offers second-hand retailers additional sales channels and helps them cut customer acquisition costs. It also collaborates with Everwave, and 1kg of waste is collected from the world’s waters for each download of its extension. Currently, the extension is compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, and the brand will launch a mobile app in 2023.
