Good morning! Katie Porter enters the California governor's race, a former Facebook exec alleges misconduct in a new memoir, and a clothing rental service wants to be the Airbnb of fashion.
- Fashion forward. While Rent the Runway and other clothing rental marketplaces struggle to find stable footing as businesses, another option has surfaced: Pickle, a peer-to-peer clothing rental marketplace.
If you follow a certain kind of big-city influencer on Instagram or TikTok—Remi Bader, Lauren Wolfe, and Brooks Nader, for example, who together boast more than 5 million followers—you've likely seen posts about the platform before. It's quickly gained a foothold with fashion influencers, who aren't paid for promoting Pickle but rather use it as a way to monetize their expansive closets.
The rental service is available via mail nationwide, but is especially focused on New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, where lenders and renters can meet up or use courier services through Uber or DoorDash for immediate exchanges. In Manhattan, the company says, one in four women between 18 and 35 use the service. Nationwide, half of its monthly active users are also weekly active users.
Founded by two alumni of Blackstone's technology group, the marketplace's pitch is that it's an inexpensive, fast way for renters to participate in trends and dress for weddings, ski vacations, Halloween, or New York Fashion Week. For lenders, it's a way to earn back some money on their investment pieces. "We're basically empowering these women to have their own entrepreneurial closets," says cofounder and COO Julia O'Mara.
Pickle has raised $12 million in Series A funding, Fortune is the first to report today; in total, the startup has now raised $20 million. FirstMark and Craft Ventures co-led this round, with participation from Burst Capital and FJ Labs. Pickle cofounders O'Mara and CEO Brian McMahon were looking to bring on marketplace experts during this fundraise; FJ Labs claims "the world's largest portfolio of marketplace startups."
Unlike resale platforms like The RealReal or rental services like Rent the Runway and Nuuly, Pickle is fully peer-to-peer, which means it's responsible for no inventory. That has been a major pain point for clothing rental services, from cleaning to keeping up with trends—so much so that Rent the Runway founder and CEO Jenn Hyman aims to transform its business model to serve as a brand marketing channel and no longer pay for most clothing; this week she announced an overhaul of Rent the Runway's inventory.
In building out Pickle, its cofounders are looking at marketplaces like Uber and Airbnb. Those two major services inspired its review system and approach to trust and safety—in Pickle's case, the safety of people's most prized clothing and accessories. "Airbnb is very similar in terms of—you're letting someone in your home," McMahon says. "Now, you're letting someone borrow items from your closet."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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