Browsing Tag: Startups

Edgewell Personal Care, which owns brands like Schick (razors), Banana Boat (sunscreen) and Wet Ones (moist wipes), is adding Harry’s to that list in a $1.37 billion acquisition.

Founded in 2013, Harry’s is part of the current wave of brands using the internet to sell products directly to consumers. (In addition to razors, it also sells shower and face care products, and operates the Flamingo brand of women’s razors.)

It’s a trend that the established consumer giants have noticed, with Unilever acquiring Dollar Shave Club and Procter & Gamble acquiring Walker & Company.

With the acquisition, Harry’s co-founders and co-CEOs Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider will become co-presidents of U.S. operations for Edgewell. (Speaking of direct-to-consumer brands: Raider is also co-founder of Warby Parker.)

“The combination of Edgewell and Harry’s is a pivotal step forward in further transforming our organization and strengthening our competitive position and ability to drive sustained growth and value creation,” said Edgewell’s president and CEO Rod Little in a statement. “Building on Edgewell’s and Harry’s complementary strengths, our combined company will have leading brands and omni-channel capabilities that are essential to meet the needs of the modern consumer and win in today’s market environment.”

Harry’s had previously raised around $375 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Edgewell says the payment will break down to roughly 79% cash and 21% stock, giving Harry’s shareholders an 11% stake in Edgewell.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Razor startup Harry’s will be acquired by Edgewell Personal Care for .37B

Intello, the New York City-based SaaS management platform, announced a $2.5 million extended seed round today, along with some product enhancements.

The round was led by Resolute Ventures . Harrison Metal and Magnetico Ventures also participated, along with various individual angel investors, including Zane Lackey from Signal Sciences, Chris Smoak from Atrium and Zach Sherman from Timber. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $4 million, according the company.

Mike Hirshland, a partner at lead investor Resolute Ventures, saw Intello helping customers deal with a serious and growing issue inside companies. “They are solving the pain of SaaS sprawl that every organization is facing by empowering modern IT, finance and security teams with better visibility,” he said in a statement.

When everyone can sign up for these services for free or with a credit card outside the purview of IT, this can lead to potential issues around security and compliance. Since last year’s $1.3 million seed round, the startup has expanded beyond simply understanding which SaaS products a company has to include a compliance component, says Barak Kaufman, co-founder and CEO at Intello.

“We are really focused on what we view as end-to-end SaaS management, which includes spend optimization and mapping out unused products and licenses. We are still doing that, but as we are selling primarily to IT, and sometimes InfoSec directors, the product has evolved passed that to working on compliance,” Kaufman explained.

To help with that, Intello has updated the product to map redundant applications along with the ability to change, add or remove licenses for third-party applications. This gives IT more control over unsanctioned applications, including removing them from the system or limiting access to them if that is the goal.

The product is also now integrated with popular single sign-on tools, Okta and Onelogin, to help companies map the usage of all the SaaS tools being used, whether free or paid, through their SSO tools.

The company offers more than two dozen integrations out of the box so far, including popular SaaS tools like Salesforce, Box, Zendesk, Google, Slack and Office 365. It plans to use some of today’s funds to build dozens more with a goal of having 100 integrations by the end of this year.

Intello currently has 12 employees and 900 companies using the free and paid versions of the solution. Customers include InVision, Sprinklr and Instacart.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | SaaS management startup Intello scores .5 million extended seed

Hotels are convenient but rarely homey. Short-term rentals through Airbnb or HomeAway are often comfy but can be a pain to book and check-in. Business travelers often have to pick the best of two lousy options. Mint House is summed up best by Tige Savage, Revolution Venture managing partner: “Mint House is the best of a hotel without the worst of a hotel and the best of an Airbnb without the worst of an Airbnb.”

The New York-based Mint House is today announcing a $15 million financing round led by Revolution Ventures, with participation from other investors and hotel industry veterans. The influx of capital and industry connections should go a long way in allowing the company to expand its offering that caters to business travelers looking for apartment-style accommodations with the predictability and reliability found in top-tier hotels.

Mint House is entering a crowded market dominated by Airbnb and monstrous industry incumbents. Mint House founder and CEO, Will Lucas, explained to TechCrunch how the company stands apart from hotels and short-term rentals. He said the company strives to provide the business traveler with a comprehensive hotel experience.

The service works a lot like a modern hotel. Travelers book online and proceed with their trip. Once the traveler arrives in the area or lands at the airport, a geofence is tripped, triggering directions to enter the building and room. The traveler doesn’t have to find someone to give them the key; their phone unlocks the door to an apartment-style room. Lucas says this takes a lot of stress off the property owner as the traveler does not need to bother anyone in the building — tenets or management alike.

Right now Mint House is focusing on markets in the U.S. besides the top markets of New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Mint House is available in Indianapolis, Denver, Nashville, Miami and Detroit. Lucas said he feels there are opportunities in these markets and often there are even worse accommodations available than in the busiest cities. Still, the total offering is relatively small: there are 200 rooms in operation, and 200 are scheduled to open by summer 2019. Travelers can book a Mint House through their app, website, or on travel sites like Expedia, Booking.com or Airbnb.

Mint House leases buildings from property owners, and Lucas was adamant that it’s the company’s goal to be a preferred partner with the real estate industry. He says that so far properties are receptive to Mint House’s business plan, and to be a global brand, the real estate community company needs to welcome Mint House. Each property, even though some might be residential or mixed-use, have a dedicated staff of cleaners and management employed by Mint House. Likewise, each city Mint House operates in has a dedicated staff in-market overseeing the local operation.

“We understand that we have two customers — the multifamily developers and the business traveler — and by prioritizing both we’ve been able to secure A+ properties and deliver a top-rated guest experience,” Lucas said.” We have also formed a team of investors and advisors that are perfectly suited to help us differentiate ourselves in this lucrative market. With expertise and relationships in growing cities, as well as how to build world-renowned hospitality brands and services, we are confident that we can continue to build and expand alongside landlords and hospitality partners.”

Each market offers different regulations that Mint House has to follow. Lucas says the company supports whatever regulation they need to follow. It’s clear he’s trying to keep Mint House on the right side of regulation. And he has help. Mint House has attracted the attention of several industry veterans that know how to grow a hospitality company.

Several notable hospitality veterans also participated in the financing round, including Tom Mangas, the former CEO of Starwood Hotels; Carl Sparks, the former CEO of Travelocity; Kerry Hatch, the former president of St. Regis Hotels; and Rob Stewart, the executive vice chairman of JBG Smith. Philippe Bourguignon, vice chairman of Revolution Places, former CEO of Club Med and Euro Disney and former president of Accor Hotels, Asia Pacific will join the board.

The deep network of industry insiders should help Mint House carve out a space of their own in the competitive hospitality world. It’s a tough market. Mint House has to get buy-in from business travelers and property owners alike. It’s a two-front battle. But as a frequent traveler myself, Mint House’s value proposition is compelling. I don’t need a hotel lobby or lackluster gym; I want a bed, couch and a TV without the terrible hotel menu system.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Mint House raises M to give business travelers a better hotel

Coalition, a cybersecurity insurance company, has raised $40 million in its latest round of funding.

Fintech investment giant Ribbit Capital led the investment with participation from Greenoaks Capital and Hillhouse Capital.

Coalition’s insurance covers expenses incurred from liabilities related to third-parties, such as fines and penalties — as well as fraud, breach response, extortion and ransomware recovery, device replacement and more. The company also aims to give U.S.-based customers an at-a-glance look at their cybersecurity posture — from alerts, threat intelligence and advice on what to improve, such as vulnerability fixing.

With its Series B, the company said it’s planning to expand its data analytics platform used to assess a company’s security posture. The funding will also expand its engineering and incident response team.

Coalition, which declined to state its valuation, previously raised $10 million in February 2018.

Cybersecurity insurance remains a fickle area. Amid an ongoing threat of breaches and data exposures, having an insurance policy in place to get a company back on its feet is smart. But many companies previously believed to be covered by cybersecurity insurance are not. When shipping giant Maersk was knocked offline by ransomware during the NotPetya attack, incurring more than $300 million in damages, its insurer Zurich declared the Russian-backed attack was an act of war and didn’t pay out.

Even when companies do pay out, it’s not a silver bullet.

Coalition’s proactive security efforts to try to prevent data breaches — and subsequent costs — is one way to save paying up. Will that scale up to another global cyberattack? Let’s hope we never find out.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Cybersecurity insurance startup Coalition raises M in Series B funding

Uber has partnered with bicycle sharing platform Yulu in India as it looks to grab a piece of the growing e-bikes market that is increasingly posing a challenge to taxi services in the nation.

The San Francisco-headquartered firm, which is expected to go public later this week, said it will provide its users in Bengaluru with Yulu’s e-bikes and bicycles as part of a pilot. The announcement, financial details of which were not disclosed, comes days after users in Bengaluru began to spot Yulu’s e-bikes and bicycles options in Uber app. Uber did not say what it intends to do after the pilot. This is the first time it is venturing into e-bikes space in India, however.

Bangalore-based startup Yulu, which was launched by InMobi cofounder Amit Gupta, operates about 500 e-bikes and 4,500 bicycles on its platform. The two-year-old startup has raised about $7 million in funding from a number of big profile names including Blume Ventures, 3One4 Capital, Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, and Freshworks cofounder Girish Mathrubootham.

Today’s announcement, one of the handful Uber has made in India in last one year, comes as the future of its business in the country appears clouded with uncertainty, a person familiar with the matter said. The service, still available in under three-dozen cities, competes with Ola, which has presence in over 100 cities. Amit Jain, who ran Uber India and was promoted to oversee the company’s APAC business last year, left the company last month.

Uber, which once committed to investing $1 billion in India and which has left Southeast Asia market after selling the local business to Grab, appears to have put its foot off the paddle in the APAC region. It said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, who heads the firm’s EMEA business, will replace Jain to oversee the APAC business.

Ola, which leads the ride-hailing market in India, has made bigger bets on e-bikes in the nation. The company, which like Uber is backed by SoftBank, invested $100 million in scooter rental startup Vogo late last year. Vogo, which operates in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, said it will use the capital to add an additional 100,000 scooters to its platform.

Vogo competes with Bounce, which offers more than 6,000 bikes. The market of two-wheelers has grown in India despite the proliferation of taxi services in the country in recent years. With major cities in India grappling with ever growing traffic congestions, the future of two-wheelers seems brighter than ever. 2019 could be the year when e-bikes gain serious momentum in the nation, Jayanth Kolla, an analyst with research firm Convergence Catalyst said.

In a statement, Uber said Yulu’s e-bikes can clock up to 25km/hr, something which is “faster than your average traffic speed.” The other charm of Yulu’s e-bikes is that, like other e-bikes, users don’t need to get a license to ride one of these. Those who participate in the pilot program will be able to avail Yulu’s e-bikes by unlocking a QR code from the Uber app.

“Along with being environment and traffic friendly, these self-ride e-bikes are also pocket friendly, taking into account the varying needs and budgets of the consumer,” the company said in a statement. “We understand that the push towards electrification has to be multi-modal, and the collaboration with Yulu only goes to demonstrate the intent therein.”

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Uber begins trialing e-bikes and bicycles rides in India

The African no-fee, cross-border payment startup Chipper Cash has raised a $2.4 million seed round led by Deciens Capital.

The payments company also persuaded 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures — co-founded by Joe Montana — to join the round.

Chipper Cash’s Ugandan chief executive, Ham Serunjogi, pitched the U.S. football legend directly. “He was quite excited about what we’re doing and his belief that the next wave of [tech] growth will come from…Africa,” Serunjogi told TechCrunch.

Chipper Cash went live in October 2018, joining a growing field of fintech startups aiming to scale digital finance applications across Africa’s billion-plus population.

The venture Serunjogi co-founded with Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled offers no-fee, P2P, cross-border mobile-money payments in Africa.

Based in San Francisco — with offices in Ghana and Nairobi — Chipper Cash has processed 250,000 transactions for more than 70,000 active users, according to Serunjogi.

In conjunction with the seed round, Chipper Cash is launching Chipper Checkout: a merchant-focused, C2B mobile payments product.

This side of the startup’s offerings isn’t free, and Chipper Cash will use revenues from Chipper Checkout — in addition to income generated from payment volume float — to support its no-fee mobile money business.

Sheel Mohnot, who led 500 Startups’ investment in Chipper Cash, likened the company’s model to PayPal.

“When PayPal started it was just a consumer to consumer free app. It still is free for consumer to consumer, but they monetized the merchant side. That model is tried and tested. It just doesn’t exist in Africa, so Chipper has the opportunity to do that,” he told TechCrunch.

In addition to Kenya’s M-Pesa — the global success story for digital payments — there are a number of mobile money products in Africa, from MTN’s Mobile Money in Ghana to Tigo Pesa in Tanzania.

The limiting factor, though, according to Chipper Cash’s CEO, is interoperability, or that mobile-money transfers across product platforms, currencies and borders generally don’t work.

“Our tech settles cross-border currency transactions in real time, and that’s part of the value proposition of the platform,” he said.

The startup will expand beyond its current operations in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda within the next 12 months. Chipper Cash also plans to tap the global remittance market for Sub-Saharan Africa, a large pool of roughly $38 billion, in the near future.

Remittances won’t be the firms’ top focus, however. Serunjogi believes there’s more volume to be found within Africa. “Demographics, migration and regional economic-integration within the continent means there’ll be an infinitely growing amount of cross-border commercial activity within Africa,” he said. “When it comes to payments, the pie is growing and…the percentage of that pie that is digital payments will also grow.”

The journey for Chipper Cash’s founders from Africa to founding a startup and pitching to Joe Montana passes through Iowa. Serunjogi and Moujaled met when doing their undergraduate degrees at Grinnell College. Stints at Silicon Valley companies followed: Facebook for Serunjogi and Flickr, Yahoo! and Imgur for Moujaled.

Chipper Cash was accepted in 500 Startups’ Batch 24 in 2018 and their demo day for the accelerator program gained the attention of Liquid 2 Ventures.

The VC fund’s Rocio Wu invited them to pitch to Joe Montana and the team in March 2019.

“Africa is extremely fragmented with different languages, cultures and currencies, Chipper Cash is uniquely positioned to tackle cross-border mobile payments with interoperability,” Wu told TechCrunch on the investment.

Wu will join Chipper Cash as a board observer. The startup is the second Africa investment for the fund. Liquid 2 Ventures is also an investor in logistics startup Lori Systems, the 2017 Startup Battlefield Africa winner.

Startups building financial technologies for Africa’s 1.2 billion population are gaining greater attention of investors. As a sector, fintech (or financial inclusion) attracted 50% of the estimated $1.1 billion funding to African startups in 2018, according to Partech.

By a number of estimates, the continent’s 1.2 billion people represent the largest share of the world’s unbanked and underbanked population. An improving smartphone and mobile-connectivity profile for Africa (see GSMA) turns this scenario into an opportunity for mobile-based financial products.

As more startups enter African fintech, Chipper Cash believes it can compete on its cross-currency and no-fee offerings and the growing size of the market. “It’s so large that it is unlikely to be a zero-sum game in terms of who wins. There will be multiple successful players,” said Serunjogi.

Chipper Cash also joins a list of African-founded, Africa-focused fintech firms that have chosen to set up HQs in San Francisco with offices and operations on the continent. Payments gateway company Flutterwave and lending venture Mines.io (both with Nigerian founders) maintain SF headquarters with operations in Lagos. Serunjogi touts the benefits of this two-continent organizational structure for access to both VC and developer markets in the U.S. and Africa.

As for Chipper Cash’s continuing relationship with investor Joe Montana, “Having access to a someone with the leadership qualities of Joe to provide advice and guidance…that’s something that’s priceless,” said Serunjogi.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Chipper Cash convinces Joe Montana to invest in African fintech

It’s easy to push a narrative of fintech upstarts versus the big incumbent banks, but the more subtle reality is that as well as competing on numerous fronts, there are partnerships being formed across the board. The latest such move sees Tink, the Sweden-based banking platform that raised €56 million in new funding in February, partner with British bank NatWest.

The agreement gives NatWest access to Tink’s Personal Finance Management (PFM) and “Data Enrichment” products, which will be integrated into NatWest’s core mobile banking app. This will allow NatWest to improve its mobile banking offering by giving NatWest customers personalised insights into their finances based on transaction history. The features built with Tink’s technology are planned to go live in Q4 2019.

The bigger picture is that by partnering with Tink, NatWest is aiming to meet increased customer expectations with regards to digital financial services. Undoubtedly, a plethora of fintech startups and challenger banks have raised the UX and feature bar significantly in the U.K. and right across Europe, not least via high quality mobile apps and better use of data, while incumbent banks have been scrambling to catch up.

“Historically banks have tried to build everything themselves, but we are now seeing a big shift where they want to partner with the best to propel development, quickly launch new features and stay competitive,” Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén tells me.

“Today more and more banks choose to leverage the external building blocks that’s available to them and add in-house uniqueness on top of that. We’ve seen the same development when it comes to hosting – banks are now choosing cloud-based solutions such as AWS instead of on-premise solutions”.

To that end, although originally launched in Sweden in 2013 as a consumer-facing finance app with bank account aggregation at its heart, Tink has since repositioned its offering to provide the same underlying technology and more to banks and other financial service providers.

Through various APIs, Tink provides four pillars of technology: “Account Aggregation,” “Payment Initiation,” “Personal Finance Management” and “Data Enrichment.” These can be used by third parties to roll their own standalone apps or integrated into existing banking applications.

Along with NatWest, Tink has partnerships with a number of other banks including Klarna, BNP Paribas Fortis, ABN AMRO, SEB and Nordea.

Meanwhile, PFM (personal finance management) functionality in some form or another can now be found in numerous banking apps and fintech chatbots, and I put it to Kjellén that a PFM feature is now a commodity. He pushes back.

“It’s true that customer’s expectations on digital banking services are increasing and incentivising the incumbents to develop their PFM tools at a more rapid pace than before,” he says. “But the future where PFM is completely data-driven and where product recommendations, advice and decisions can be put on autopilot is still very far from a commodity”.

“The most advanced players are now building products that… take their PFM apps from being read-only to data-driven and actionable. It’s this combination of functionalities that will be game-changing for the industry”.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Tink, the European banking platform, partners with British incumbent NatWest

A group of former Uber employees unveiled their podcasting startup RedCircle last week, and now they’re already launching new features — specifically the ability for listeners to make small tip payments to podcasters.

RedCircle has created a web-based podcast player of its own, but CEO Michael Kadin (previously an engineering manager at Uber) said the mission isn’t to compete with other podcast apps. Instead the team aims to create the tools podcasters need to build a real business.

In fact, RedCircle is already offering some of those tools — like hosting and analytics — for free, and it also launched a cross-promotion marketplace where those podcasters can team up to try to grow each others’ audiences.

As for the new tipping feature, it appears as a button on the RedCircle player, allowing users to pay $2, $5 or a custom amount with just a few clicks (you’ll also need to enter your credit card info, of course). The startup can also automatically insert a tipping link into a podcast’s show notes, so listeners will find out about it regardless of the player they use.

Co-founder Jeremy Lermitte (a former Uber product manager) added that tipping provides a way for fans to compensate a podcaster for an episode they particularly enjoyed without making the long-term commitment of, say, signing up for a Patreon subscription.

“This allows you to engage at your own pace,” Lermitte said.

Podcasters can and do accept one-time payments via PayPal or Venmo, but Kadin said RedCircle offers more data about who’s making the payments, while also providing a 1099 form for taxes and “all the other things you want to turn this into a real thing, versus something casual.”

“The first thing podcasters say they need is to grow their audience,” he added. “The second thing is to make money from it. Now we’re working on both of those problems. Just give us another week and a half and we’ll make even more progress.”

RedCircle has raised a $1.5 million seed round led by Roy Bahat at Bloomberg Beta .

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | RedCircle’s latest feature makes it easy to tip podcast creators

Lora DiCarlo, a startup coupling robotics and sexual health, has $2 million to shove in the Consumer Electronics Show’s face.

The same day the company was set to announce their fundraise, The Consumer Technology Association, the event producer behind CES, decided to re-award the Bend, Oregon-based Lora DiCarlo with the innovation award it had revoked from the company ahead of this year’s big event.

In January, the CTA nullified the award it had granted the business, which is building a hands-free device that uses biomimicry and robotics to help people achieve a blended orgasm by simultaneously stimulating the G spot and the clitoris. Called Osé, the device uses micro-robotic technology to mimic the sensation of a human mouth, tongue and fingers in order to produce a blended orgasm for people with vaginas.

Lora DiCarlo’s debut product, Osé, set to release this fall. The company says the device is currently undergoing changes and may look different upon release.

“CTA did not handle this award properly,” CTA senior vice president of marketing and communications Jean Foster said in a statement released today. “This prompted some important conversations internally and with external advisors and we look forward to taking these learnings to continue to improve the show.”

Lora DiCarlo had applied for the CES Innovation Award back in September. In early October, the CTA notified the company of its award. Fast-forward to October 31, 2018 and CES Projects senior manager Brandon Moffett informed the company they had been disqualified. The press storm that followed only boosted Lora DiCarlo’s reputation, put Haddock at the top of the speakers’ circuit and proved, once again, that sexuality is still taboo at CES and that the gadget show has failed to adapt to the times.

In its original letter to Lora DiCarlo, obtained by TechCrunch, the CTA called the startup’s product “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with the CTA’s image” and that it did “not fit into any of [its] existing product categories and should not have been accepted” to the awards program. CTA later apologized for the mishap before ultimately re-awarding the prize.

At the request of the CTA, Haddock and her team have been working with the organization to create a more inclusive show and better incorporate both sextech companies and women’s health businesses.

“We were a catalyst to a huge, resounding amount of support from a very large community of people who have been quietly thinking this is something that needs to happen,” Haddock told TechCrunch. “For us, it was all about timing.”

Lora DiCarlo plans to use its infusion of funding, provided by new and existing investors led by the Oregon Opportunity Zone Limited Partnership, to hire ahead of the release of its first product. Pre-orders for the Osé, which will retail for $290, will open this summer with an expected official release this fall.

Haddock said four other devices are in the pipeline, one specifically for clitoral stimulation, another for clitoral and vaginal stimulation, one for anywhere on the body and the other, she said, is a different approach to the way people with vulvas masturbate.

“We are aiming for that hands-free, human experience,” Haddock said. “We wanted to make something really interesting and very different and beautiful.”

Next year, Haddock says they plan to integrate their products with virtual reality, a step that will require a larger boost of capital.

Haddock and her employees don’t plan to quiet down any time soon. With their newfound fame, the team will continue supporting the expanding sextech industry and gender equity within tech generally.

“We’ve realized our social mission is so important,” Haddock said. “Gender equality, at its source, is about sex. We absolutely demonize sex and sexuality … When you talk about removing sexual stigmas, you are also talking about removing gender stigmas and creating gender equity.”

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Sextech company scorned by CES scores M and an apology

Who would have thought Rent the Runway would emerge as a competitor to The Wing and all traditional brick-and-mortar retail?

Its newest store, complete with co-working space, shows it’s more than just a designer gown rental service. Shortly after landing a $125 million investment at a $1 billion valuation, Rent the Runway (RTR) has replanted roots in San Francisco, opening an 8,300 square foot West Coast flagship in the city’s Union Square neighborhood.

Located on 228 Grant Avenue, the store is RTR’s fifth and largest location yet. In addition to 3,000 pieces of merchandise curated daily, the store includes stylists, a coffee cart, space for evening programming and networking events, desk space for co-working, a beauty bar and some 20 dressing rooms.

“Think of it like your gym or your Starbucks; it’s part of what you do on a daily basis,” RTR chief operating officer Maureen Sullivan told TechCrunch.

RTR was founded in 2009 by Jenn Hyman and Jenny Fleiss as a website for renting expensive, designer dresses. Since then it’s expanded to become a fashion rental marketplace equipped with accessories, casual pieces and its bread and butter: formal wear.

The company’s core product, RTR Reserve, lets customers rent one piece of clothing for four to eight days with prices starting at $30 per garment. RTR Update, at $89 per month, gives customers access to up to four pieces of clothing per month. And finally, RTR Unlimited charges users $159 for unlimited swaps every month, meaning you get up to four pieces at a time but can visit a store daily and swap the pieces out, if you wanted.

Its new space is essentially The Wing with an enormous closet of designer clothing available to rent. RTR even used the same all-female design team that crafted The Wing’s spaces to create its newest spot, which mimics The Wing’s airy, West Elm-like vibe.

Of course, RTR isn’t trying to compete with co-working spaces or salons or coffee shops; rather, the team recognizes that sometimes women need to find beautiful clothes and get shit done simultaneously.

“Our subscriber is a busy working woman,” Sullivan said. “Sometimes she may want to come in and work.”

The new store was built for the 21st century tech-enabled consumer. A “physical manifestation of the shared closet,” the store’s technology allows customers to return rented items within a few seconds, check out with their RTR Pass on their phone and pick up orders without having to wait in line.

RTR currently operates physical stores in Chicago, New York, Woodland Hills, Calif. and Washington, DC. Sullivan says San Francisco is the company’s third largest market behind New York and DC.

RTR opened its first standalone location in San Francisco last year and quickly realized the space was too small for its expanding crowd of subscribers. While the service was intended to be all-digital, data collected by RTR indicated users wanted to try on clothes before they rented. With that in mind, RTR will continue to open additional stores and “experiment with its physical presence” in other ways, too.

“Data is at the heart of our company,” Sullivan said. “We aren’t a typical direct-to-consumer brand.”

RTR has raised a total of $521 million in debt and equity funding from Franklin Templeton Investments, T. Rowe Price, Female Founders Fund and others.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Rent the Runway just opened its largest brick-and-mortar store yet