Standing Ovation pockets $1.1M funding, targets the $40B in Japan’s closets

Japanese startup Standing Ovation today announced that it has raised JPY 140 million (approximately US$1.14 million) from Gumi Ventures, DBJ Capital, iStyle Capital, and angel investors. This is the company’s second round, after receiving seed funds from Skyland Ventures last year.

Standing Ovation is one of many startups looking to cash in on women’s fashion in Japan, but they aren’t selling clothes – the goal is to provide a middle service between “new” and “used.”

According to market research conducted by Citation Japan for Standing Ovation in August 2014, 15 million Japanese women between 16 and 35 collectively own nearly 1.2 billion articles of clothing that they don’t wear regularly. That means as much as JPY 5 trillion (US$40 billion) never leaves the closet.

Standing Ovation’s app, XZ Closet has a new approach to the market. Ecommerce goliaths like Rakuten are selling new clothes and trendy newcomers like Fril are helping customers unload their unwanted clothing, but XZ Closet is hoping to get women wearing more of what they already own.

The Walkman for your wardrobe

The XZ Closet app allows users to upload every article of clothing they own to a social network geared at sharing fashion sense. Drawing from someone else’s database of items, users create kode, or “coordinations,” which are then displayed publicly for likes, comments, and user follows. Part of the service’s real-life appeal is how it facilitates kimawashi, a mix-and-match of brands and styles.

“Most women own things from various brands and price ranges, which is why they don’t always feel like what they have goes together,” says Standing Ovation founder and CEO Yoshihiro Ogita. “We’ve taken a bottom-up approach, eliciting kimawashi ideas from users and generating fashion trend data in the process.”

That model seems to be taking off. Since its launch in September 2014, XZ Closet has been downloaded 53,000 times on iOS and Android. Users have uploaded more than 270,000 articles of clothing to date, the most zealous of them surpassing 500 items alone. As a result, over 55,000 new kimawashi outfits have been registered.

The app’s utility extends into the real world as well. Ogita says that once items are uploaded, users are able to refer to the app while shopping for cues on what to buy, or more importantly, reminders of what not to buy more of.

Users suggest various outfits based on a single item, like this sweater.

“We’re trying to put every woman’s closet in her pocket, the same way you walk around with your whole music collection now,” Ogita explains. “Seeing what other people have done with the items you own changes the way you shop.”

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