US-based fashion marketplace Material Wrld received $9m in series B funding from Nissay Capital, the investment arm of insurance provider Nippon Life Insurance, and e-commerce company Start Today on Wednesday, according to The Bridge.
Founded in 2011, Material Wrld provides a marketplace for high-end, pre-owned fashion items. The company also offers a debit card that lets consumers purchase clothes at more than 700 online and physical stores using trade-in credits from items they sell using its service.
Material Wrld plans on using the fresh funding to launch a new online platform in the US that will integrate the marketplace’s different features, including trade-ins and purchases, into a single interface.
Start Today, which runs second-hand fashion e-commerce platform Zozoused, will collaborate with Material Wrld to leverage each other’s respective experiences in the US and Japan. Material Wrld has raised $16m altogether, according to regulatory filings.
Nissay Capital previously participated in a $2.2m series A round in January 2015. Great Oaks led a $780,000 seed round, supplied in the form of a convertuble note, in 2012 that included SunBridge Startups, ImproVista and assorted angel investors.