Third Wave Fashion // FEBRUARY 2014 // THE GLOBAL ISSUE | Page 25

S H OW M E

THE MONEY
In the realm of globalized commerce, it is
essential to understand how your customers
pay, and the British company GoCardless is
looking to make that experience easier. Even
with companies like Square and Stripe, many
of the world’s markets shy away from credit
cards, favoring options like pay-on-delivery
and direct debit. Similar to the US-based
Dwolla, GoCardless has set itself apart by
developing direct debit options that are both
business and consumer friendly. By
eliminating the credit card fees, the company
charges one percent transaction fee, which
ultimately means more money for the
business owner.
In addition to globalization, the other major
trend that we saw was in the idea of
customization, and more importantly the
personalization of the industry. e idea
holds strong with companies like TeeSpring, a
Rhode Island-based custom t-shirt platform
that raised $20M, and Bow and Drape, a
Boston-based company that raised $1.2M on
the belief that women know what kind of
clothing looks best on them and that no
garment off the rack will be as stunning as
one that is custom made. ough the two are
very different, they do provide evidence to
the idea that was introduced in late 2013 that
we are on our way toward a third industrial
revolution based in mass-customization.
e personalization doesn’t end there.
Companies like Twice and Vinted both
emerged in the recommerce space with
$18.5M and $27M respectively. ough the
vertical is based on second hand products,
the note to take from these investments is

that the two companies are located half a
world apart, Twice is based in California and
Vinted in Lithuania. Considering the success
that the Poshmark report indicated in
recommerce, this strengthens the notion that
the closet sharing community is growing
tremendously.
In addition to the personalization of
consumer products, there have also been a
number of investments in technology that is
meant to enhance customer experience across
the digital space. We saw two companies that
emerged focused on customer reviews,
Danish TrustPilot and Israeli Yotpo. e idea
behind the two is to enhance customer
review quality, TrustPilot focuses on
eliminating fake reviews and highlighting
positive ones, while Yotpo is aimed at
acquiring the review with a well-timed email
that the customer can respond to directly to
deliver a review of the product. With how
elusive a decent customer review can be, the
idea that a company could enhance what they
receive in terms of feedback could be
essential as ecommerce continues to become
even more social.
e problems that face an increase in social
shopping is the maintenance of the customer
experience. With so many platform options
for social media alone the whole process can
be overwhelming. What could be a dreamcome-true for community managers of major
brands, Spredfast received $32.5M to
continue growth of their one-stop social
media dashboard. With the speed at which
the social media powerhouses are changing,
and the development of international social

media outlets, Spredfast looks to stand out
from competitors like HootSuite by staying
ahead of the platforms its customers are
using.

$112M*

Finally, the area that five companies were
funded in was content delivery. Volusion
raised $35M to further develop its platform
to streamline a business’s ability to build a
functioning ecommerce site, which takes aim
directly at Shopify. e benefit is that the
technology available to build ecommerce
platforms should become easier to
understand, which will boost user experience
and, hopefully, increase sales for ecommerce
sites. Companies Lyst and Mulu were also
invested in, both focused on making the
internet of things more shoppable. Lyst
provides a universal shopping cart, making
online purchasing from various companies
easier, and Mulu took aim at shoppable pages,
a problem that the online publishing
community has been fighting for the past few
years. Mulu’s technology essentially allows
links to be em