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Basque-founded fashion tech startup Lookiero raises €17 million to scale across Europe
Mary Loritz
Basque-based startup Lookiero, a personal shopping startup, has raised €17 million in funding led by MMC Ventures, with participation from existing investor All Iron Ventures, and new investors Bonsai Partners, 10x and Santander Smart.
The funding will allow the company to continue its international expansion and strengthen its leadership position within its main markets: Spain, France and the UK.
Founded in 2015 by Oier Urrutia, Lookiero combines the knowledge of personal stylists, detailed customer profiles and in-house learning algorithms to provide a fully-personalised online shopping experience to its customers.
It delivers a selection of five pieces of clothing or accessories carefully curated by a personal shopper to fit the customer's individual size, style, and preferences. Customers then decide which items to keep or return (at no additional cost), allowing Lookiero's technology and personal shoppers to learn through feedback and improve future selections.
Lookiero currently has over one million registered users and has grown revenue by over 200% from 2017 to 2018. By generating look-a-like profiles and analysing previous customer interactions with each item, Lookiero's technology can accurately predict how likely a user is going to keep a certain item from a range of more than 150 European brands. This 'recommendation algorithm' assists the customers' assigned personal shopper to pick the best options for each customer. The team's technical and data science capabilities also extend into back-end operations, having built a suite of warehousing systems that will ship more than three million items of clothing this year and have underpinned their expansion into seven European countries to-date.
The funding will partly support the growth of Lookiero's London office, currently more than 20 people. In the UK, Lookiero works with retail partners including Warehouse and French Connection. It will also allow Lookiero to expand its Paris operation alongside a new office opening in Italy.
"This investment round provides us with the necessary capital to further increase the accuracy of our technology, which is really exciting," said Oier Urrutia, founder and CEO of Lookiero. "It will allow us to offer the best possible experience for our users and to continue expanding across Europe. Our new investors bring valuable experience and knowledge in branded direct-to-consumer tech, user retention, and internationalisation that will help to take Lookiero to the next level of scale."
"The migration of fashion brands online has improved consumers' access to clothing, and there is now an almost overwhelming amount of choice," said Simon Menashy, Partner, MMC Ventures.
"At the same time, it can still be really hard to find exactly what is right for you, especially with high street retail stores in decline. Lookiero provides the best of both worlds, giving every customer a hand-picked selection from their personal stylist. We're excited to be backing a world-class team that is using technology to make it easier for customers to find the perfect styles and sizes for them. We're also pleased to be supporting Lookiero's UK expansion."
Lookiero
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Mary served as Head of Content at EU-Startups.com from November 2018 until November 2019. She is an experienced journalist and researcher covering tech and business topics.
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