S H OW M E
THE MONEY
L
ast month as the summer heat dragged on, we saw another small funding
group for July in the fashion tech industry. A total of $145M was invested in
the space with almost two-thirds of the companies based in the United States. We saw
a few other countries pop up on the funding map including investments in India,
London, France, Australia, and the rumored next hot startup ecosystem in
development, Berlin, Germany. While we oen note most U.S. based companies tend
to get funding in the Bay Area, last month saw major money being poured into New
York CIty ventures — $104.1M to be exact. Overall numbers were surprisingly lower
than June, with $216.7M less invested in July. Here are some of the funding events of
note.
To begin with, the funding champion of July was New York based crowd
curated site, Fancy. In a venture round headed by none other than actor Will Smith
and American Express along with Len Blavatnik, this social shopping and discovery
engine captured an cool $53M. Now valued at over $600M, Fancy is looking to use
the cash to catch up to other image based discovery sites such as Pinterest, valued at
$2B ,and Wanelo, an upstart competitor that is slowly catching on with users.
Another stunning venture round was snagged by e Iconic, a clothing,
footwear, and accessories platform for Australia and New Zealand backed by
incubator Rocket Internet. e Iconic received $26M, adding to $46M already raised.
is round was lead by Verlinvest, a family owned firm out of Belgium, with help
from existing shareholders as well as Kinnevik and Summit Partners. Co-founder
Adam Jacobs states the funding will be used to improve and build out the site
functions as well as upgrade mobile. New brands, both international and domestic,
will also be added. e Iconic will seek to improve upon its community aspects,
putting additional focus on social media as well as unique offline magazine.
In wholesale fashion news, JOOR picked up an impressive $14.6M in Series
C fundin