Singapore’s ‘sustainable ecommerce’ startup Refash raises seed funding

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Pre-owned clothes resale website Refash has raised a US$294,000 seed round, it announced today. The funding round was led by Singapore’s Tri5 Ventures and joined by Malaysia-based Tinkbig Ventures and an angel investor who was not named.

Singapore-based Refash is a place for people to “recycle” unwanted clothes. The startup claims that Singaporeans get rid of 41.5 million kilograms of clothes every year, which largely goes to waste. Founder and CEO Aloysius Sng wanted to create a solution where people can resell their clothing surplus to others quickly and easily.

“People who want to clear their closets of unwanted clothes just need to pack [them] and have [them] picked up by Refash. We will do the rest,” Aloysius says.

Refash wants to launch in Malaysia by the end of the year.

The service specializes in women’s clothing, bags, and accessories at the moment. Refash claims to have sold more than 30,000 items and has completed sales of close to US$294,000 in the eight months it’s been active.

Refash will use the seed funding to beef up the tech both on its website and its backend inventory system. Additionally, it wants to create a business-oriented network of resellers that can move pre-owned clothes through the service. Finally, the startup wants to launch in Malaysia by the end of the year.

“Aloysius and the team at Refash are seasoned hands at handling fast fashion. More importantly, they see the commercial opportunity of reducing wastage. We like the theme of sustainable ecommerce, which we have identified as a new growth vertical for Southeast Asia,” says Tri5 managing partner Christopher Quek.

Refash graduated from the most recent cohort of the SPH Plug and Play accelerator.

Converted from Singapore dollars. US$1 = S$1.36