Kindora raises €500,000, secures Techstars accelerator spot

Kindora, a company that developed a platform to sell-on premium children's goods, has raised €500,000 from investors. It has also just become the first female-founded Irish business to be selected for the Techstars London seed accelerator.

Founded in August 2020 by Sarah Ouellette, Kindora buys, sells and rents premium pre-owned items – from cots and strollers to nursery furniture – after a deep clean. Launched late last year the platform gained more than 500 customers within six months while revenues have grown 25 per cent month-on-month.

In addition to letting individuals sell-on items, the platform also provides manufacturers a platform to sell on additional stock that would otherwise just be left sitting in warehouses.

Kindora is one of two Irish companies, along with Asset Reality, to be chosen for the lastest installment of Techstars London, which only accepts 1 per cent of applicants.

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The funding round has been led by Dublin-based Heather Morris, who was previously chief strategy officer with student learning platform Chegg and is an advisor to BabyQuip, a US company that offers a similar service to Kindora's. Other backers include Georgie Smallwood, chief product officer of Tier Mobility, and entrepreneur Desmond Green, who sold his Minchem business to Indaver for €23 million in the late 1990s.

Ms Ouellette, a former commercial director at Lovin Media, whose other employers also include Turner International and Lonely Planet Publications, is targeting the premium resale market for children's goods in Europe, which is expected to be worth more than €1 billion by 2023.

‘Huge competition’

“If you look at the key investment items you need for a baby, they aren’t cheap. There is huge competition in the market because parents spend on average about €10,000 in the first year of having a baby with many of the items they buy only being used for a few months. We offer a really smart and easy way to sell on those items to other families,” she said.

Ms Ouellette said Kindora is looking at opening a physical premises in Dublin later this year, which would act as a showroom and workshop, as well as a community space for parents, caregivers and guardians.

“We raised the money for two key reasons – the first one is to expand quickly. We’ve had great success in Ireland and are now sowing the seeds for growth across Britain and mainland Europe. The financing will also be used for some pretty robust product enhancements,” said Ms Ouellette.

Kindora is already selling into a number of export markets, albeit in an ad hoc manner. Ms Ouellette saying she expected the company will look to raise a bigger funding round in 2023 as it looks to expand further into European markets.