Elizabeth is the founder of Galore, a closed-loop platform for buying, renting and, reselling designer handbags. With a tried-and-tested MVP model – seeing a growing 1000+ waiting list and 5+ channelled partners with a GMV over £500,000 – she’s begun working full-time on the platform and is currently raising a pre-seed round. 

 

The proposition

Many of today’s secondhand platforms act as middlemen between buyers and sellers, with little transparency around the product’s journey and authenticity. Galore aims to tackle that with its closed-loop model based in the cloud, leveraging Digital iDs – an emerging standard in the fashion industry to track and maximise the lifecycle of a product:

“By 2030, the EU is in motion to pass a law that calls for all manufactured products to come with a digital physical passport (Digital iD). However, think about all the vintage and pre-dated high-end bags and accessories that will not have a Digital iD. We aim to be the first market player in the second-hand luxury resale and rental space to implement these digital IDs and create a reliable platform for other players in the market to do so.”

First introducing a technology that can authenticate a bag in 30 seconds, Galore then plans to tag the bags with unique RFIDs  (Digital iDs) that document their product’s journey for both sides of the marketplace.

“We’re maximising the value of a bag and prolonging the product’s life cycle. 82% of luxury shoppers have told us that physical authentication is the most important feature to convince them to buy secondhand, and we believe that the Digital iD will raise comfort levels and reduce this number significantly,” Elizabeth shares.

 

 

Early-days

Elizabeth joined NEF+ after spending more than seven years in investment banking, with initial plans to scale a virtual 3D changing room for retailers to reduce returns.

Whilst convinced of the opportunities for sustainable fashion and the circular economy (especially seeing how assets have been shifting in that direction), she quickly realised how capital-intensive it would be to differentiate with her virtual changing room: “how do you convince clients to pay a premium for a 3D version that essentially works the same way as a 2d version and yields the same results?”

Through NEF’s iterative and design-thinking process, Elizabeth went back to the drawing board and took inspiration from her experience in private banking. “I’ve dealt directly with high net worth individuals – onboarding them and doing due diligence on them as well as safeguarding their assets– this has opened me up to the types of risk indicators they’d be looking out for and how to protect high-ticket assets in the long-run.”

Elizabeth started to test Galore’s concept by manually renting out her luxury bags, before seeing interest grow to a waitlist of 1000+ people. She notes that while the mammoth secondhand luxury market is valued at £31B, designer handbags represent a significant share of the market size- the CAGR over the next 5 years is at 15-20%. “Everyone is looking to invest, deploy capital, against businesses, or features that are sustainable, innovative and long-lasting.”

 

Looking forward

Seeing strong traction, Elizabeth is now raising a pre-seed round, working with impact VCs and investors to join the growing space within the second-hand luxury market. The market has also begun to take notice – with two publications looking to pick up her story soon.

“[With this investment], we intend to aggressively speed up company growth and technology, acquire inventory, strengthen partnerships, build our userbase and improve our current operation,” she shares, looking into the positive future of Galore.

 

You can reach out to Elizabeth at elizabeth@galore.club

Learn more about the NEF+ programme here.