igital fashion start-up DressX has closed an additional fundraise, bringing the company to a total of $3.3 million in venture funding.
After announcing its last round in July, co-led by the Artemis Fund and Alpha Edison, this additional $1 million in funding comes from partners in the fashion, tech and blockchain industries.
Launched in August 2020, DressX is a retail platform for digital-only clothes, featuring more than 1,000 stock keeping units by 100 designers including Patrick McDowell, Gary James McQueen and the Fabricant and Paskal, as well as DressX private label pieces such as sweatshirts and blazers with galactic artwork inspired by SpaceX and NASA.
The company offers virtual clothing that can be digitally worn by its users in their photos and videos — to be shared across various digital platforms — providing a more eco-friendly alternative to purchasing physical garments.
On its website and app, purchased digital looks can be custom-fitted by DressX engineers to a digital photo in 24 hours. DressX also offers a subscription model.
“We are are thrilled to invest in DressX. It is a revolutionary start-up, and we are convinced that it will not only create a new movement in the fashion industry but will play a great role in making the world more sustainable,” said Jaroslawa Z. Johnson, president and CEO of Western NIS Enterprise Fund, the fund behind U.Ventures, one of the new investors who participated in the new funding round.
“We are proud to partner with The Artemis Fund, Alpha Edison and all our investors to scale the company. Extremely happy with the fact that we received an additional follow-up investment from U.Ventures and other strategic investors from various industries. Digital fashion industry is moving fast and it’s great to see that more and more stakeholders believe in this new domain that is already changing the fashion industry at a scale. Every day, we are getting closer to our aim of selling 1 billion digital fashion items,” said CEO and cofounder of DressX Daria Shapovalova.
U.Ventures is a venture capital fund established in 2017 to support start-up talent in Ukraine and Moldova. U.Ventures investments, alongside the rest of WNISEF’s portfolio, are managed by Horizon Capital, a regional growth equity firm with more than $1.1 billion in assets.
Based in L.A., DressX was launched by cofounders Natalia Modenova and Shapovalova who came to the sector with 15 years of experience running fashion showrooms and events in Europe, including Kiev Fashion Days.
In August 2021, DressX entered a partnership with NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace Crypto.com, to establish a a new distribution channel to release limited-edition styles to members of the site via a dedicated digital storefront.
“We want to make fashion affordable, inclusive and available to everyone,” she said, predicting that digital fashion will one day be a $1 billion industry. “You can wear one outfit on Google Meet, in a TikTok video and in gaming — we just need to create that link and DressX is here to navigate how the fashion of future will look in all kinds of multiverses.”
