Berlin-based AI-powered startup Faircado raises €500K to transform E-commerce into Re-commerce

Faircado, a Berlin-based startup that provides the first AI-powered second-hand shopping assistance, announced it has raised €500,000 in a pre-seed round led by BackBone Ventures, with Earlybird, Peak Capital, Atomico, 4P Capital and others. Funds will be spent to further product development and marketing as well as exploring new partnership opportunities in Europe.

Faircado is a second-hand alternative to Amazon that works as a browser extension to show customers the second-hand alternatives to items they're shopping for online. It's the only browser extension on the market that centralizes all the second-hand offers in its catalog and compares prices of pre-owned items in different categories, including electronics and books. Faircado activates after installing its free extension to a browser. Whenever a user searches on the marketplace for an item, Faircado displays all second-hand options and bridges the user with the resale shop.

Evolena de Wilde d'Estmael, Co-founder and CEO, Faircado: “The second-hand market has gained 50% of new buyers in one year in Europe. Faircado saves hours of search across multiple resale sites and eases the second-hand purchase process. In a few months, we will offer a few more shopping categories such as clothes, kid’s stuff, bikes, furniture, jewelry and other items.” 

Faircado collaborates with Everwave, and 1 kg of waste is collected from the world’s waters for each download of its extension. The extension is currently compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge, and the brand will launch a mobile app in 2023.

Xavier Sarras, Founding Partner, 4P Capital: “The circular economy is one of the most important seismic shifts in how humans will produce, consume and share goods going forward. It is also the only way to stop us from needing triple the planet’s existing resources to sustain life. Faircado is tackling the needed behavior change right where consumption has found its new epicenter: e-commerce. With superior technology and UX, the stellar team around founders Evolena and Ali are building something that could make ecommerce become circular. It’s a true game-changer, which is why we have invested.” 

www.faircado.de