Fintech set to tackle fashion waste secures £1.35m investment

A new fintech designed to reduce stock wastage in the fashion industry has raised £1.35m in seed funding.

Purple Dot, a ‘worth-the-wait’ payment option for fashion brands, has today announced its seed round of £1.35m.

Founded in August 2019 by senior Skyscanner employees Madeline Parra and John Talbott, Purple Dot aims to help fashion brands tackle wasted inventory and drastic sales tactics by allowing consumers to request a ‘worth-the-wait’ lower price.

Once requested, retailers may then decide whether or not to release a product mid-season at a slightly reduced rate.

The seed round was led by Connect Ventures, with support from a range of investors including AI Seed, Moxxie Ventures, Andy Chung and Philipp Moehring from AngelList, Vijay Pandurangan (ex-Twitter), Alex Roetter former SVP of Engineering at Twitter and the family office of Paul Forster, co-founder of Indeed.com.

Madeline Parra, CEO of Purple Dot, commented: “When shopping online today, customers can either pay the retail price or walk away. When they do walk away, the item goes through the discounting process, becomes unprofitable for the merchant and is resigned to landfill.

“This binary system isn’t working for anyone - the customer loses out on the item, because it may go out of stock in their size before they attempt to purchase it again, and the merchant loses the sale.

“Purple Dot tackles this problem head on by providing a new way to shop, taking on unsustainable, unrelenting consumerism, poor pricing tactics and profit-crunching sales at the same time.”

Pietro Bezza, general partner at Connect Ventures, added: “For Connect Ventures our investment in Purple Dot extends our thesis of investing in teams who leverage software and a product-first approach to solving real-world problems.

“Purple Dot’s innovative proposition benefits retailers by creating a solution to their inventory problems. End of season ‘panic sales’ have long caused financial uncertainty for retailers and a negative impact on the environment in equal measure.

“We’re very proud to have partnered with Madeline and John in their mission to change the way we shop and to rewrite the rules of retail.”