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Dubai-based online luxury resale marketplace, The Luxury Closet, has secured equity capital totalling $14 million to expand its operations globally.
The funding round was led by GMP Investments, with participation from regional and international investors including HB Investments, Nazer Group, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and MLM Investment Company.
CEO and Founder of The Luxury Closet, Kunal Kapoor, said: “Re-sale is the future of shopping. We expect one in six transactions to be pre-owned by the end of the decade. This marks a paradigm shift in consumer choice and the value chain of the fashion and retail industry.”
“What we are excited about most is leading the industry to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future,” he added.
TheLuxuryCloset.com was founded in 2012. Consumer patterns are shifting towards a more conscious and sustainable approach to fashion.
Pre-owned items drive the fashion movement while offering buyers access to real luxury, which has previously been unreachable for certain customers due to price or availability in their regions.
Mona Kattan, President of HB Investments said “Being eco-friendly is so important to us as family and an organization, and The Luxury Closet advocates that by recycling Luxury Fashion. Having a platform that allows us to re-sell and buy luxurious items at an affordable cost is so meaningful to us because it opens up the accessibility to more people and also reduces the incentive to buy counterfeits.
Dubai-based MEVP, which invests in the early and growth stages of innovative companies, has backed The Luxury Closet in its continuous funding rounds.
“MEVP is happy to report a partial exit for its first Fund and remains bullish on its ownership in MEVFII and MEVFIII," said Walid Hanna, Founder and CEO at Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP).
The resale industry has witnessed a huge growth in the past few years with companies like The Real Real, Poshmark and Thredup debuting on the public stock markets.
One of the largest luxury groups Kering has been active in the resale world, recently leading a $216 million funding round in French luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective and catapulting it to an unicorn status.
(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Anoop Menon)
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