DRESSX, a mission-driven fashion tech company disrupting a $1.3 trillion apparel industry, announces the successful raise of USD 15 million Series A round led by Greenfield with participation from Slow Ventures, Warner Music, The Artemis Fund, Red Dao and other investors.
The funds raised will help the company to scale its vision of the future of digital fashion, ensure interoperability of the digital fashion assets offered by DRESSX, improve the performance of the DRESSX app and NFT marketplace, grow the community, and partner with social media, gaming, and other virtual platforms to continue being the main provider of 3D fashion in the Metaverse.
Since the launch in August 2020, the company has become the largest platform for digital-only fashion clothes, with more than 3500 digital items available in the DRESSX virtual wardrobe library on the website and on the DRESSX app. The fashion tech company sells digital clothing and accessories designed by DRESSX and by external brands. The buyers can wear the garments in AR, photo dressing, video calls, and on avatars in Decentraland and Ready Player Me, offering a virtual fit experience.
Furthermore, the garments are also sold on external marketplaces in virtual worlds such as Roblox, Zepeto and in Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Horizon Worlds) and soon Snapchat, where buyers can wear the digital fashion items on their avatars.
Avatars represent visual digital identities and are an extension of self-expression and increasingly important for the next generation. According to a survey 60% of Gen Z and 62% of Millennials in the US believe that the way they present themselves online is more important than how they present themselves in person.
According to a Barclay Card study, nearly 10% of all UK shoppers are buying clothes for the sole purpose of posting styled pictures on social media before returning them — A trend that plays into Digital Fashion's hand, experts believe. If the only purpose of buying the physical item is utility within a virtual environment, why not buy a virtual item for your digital wardrobe instead?
Fashion brands have started to recognize the opportunity in digital fashion, which is said to be a $50bn market by 2030 according to Morgan Stanley, with the gaming industry already being a great indication of the potential for brands and designers. Roblox, a web2 virtual world with over 50 million Daily Active Users (DAU), is a case in point: In 2022 alone, more than 11.5 million creators designed over 62 million virtual clothing and accessory items on Roblox. Based on Roblox's study, this means that at least 200 times as many creators are designing 3D fashion and accessories on Roblox as the estimated number of fashion designers creating physical collections in the United States.
"Digital fashion is something we have become extremely excited about as a firm", Jascha Samadi, Founding Partner at Greenfield said. "There is a huge design space and a new paradigm emerging around the question, what we are wearing within the metaverse. Fashion has always been a core part of someone's identity and a way to express yourself. As we spend more and more time in virtual environments, this will equally translate beyond the physical sphere and NFTs and blockchain technology will enable true digital ownership to elevate one's identity. We are very excited to see how this space will evolve over the next 5-10 years and we believe DRESSX will be at the forefront of shaping and driving change in the virtual fit and digital fashion landscape."
Although the industry is still in its infancy, DRESSX has partnered with numerous leading tech, fashion, and lifestyle companies, including Meta, Roblox, Snapchat, Google, Coca-Cola, FARFETCH and more. The company has been named one of the finalists of LVMH Innovation Award 2022 in the category 3D/Virtual Product Experience & Metaverse.
In addition, DRESSX is a female-led and female-founded company. The core team of the start-up is based in Los Angeles. All founding team members have vast experience in fashion (co-founders Daria and Natalia worked together on a number of successful fashion companies in Europe) and in tech - Head of Product at DRESSX Julie Krasnienko led marketing at Looksery (acquired by Snap Inc. in 2015).
"We are eager to continue building and scaling the DRESSX vision for the future and implementing new features and use-cases for digital fashion with the support of Greenfield. Building DRESSX as an ultimate destination for creators, brands, and consumers, we are proud to partner with this crypto investor, seeing this event as the next big step towards giving a virtual wardrobe to every person in the world", commented Daria Shapovalova, CEO and co-founder of DRESSX.
"With DRESSX, we aim to enable an infinite sustainable metacloset for our lives in the Metaverse. Digital fashion is a visual language for communicating and creating bonds online, and we are excited to continue improving our technology, expand DRESSX's presence on the fashion and web3 scenes, and introduce new utilities for digital wearables using augmented reality, machine learning and blockchain", shared Natalia Modenova, COO and co-founder of DRESSX.
