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Do you have a much - loved crown with a torn sleeve or pair of begrimed kicks gathering dust at the back of your closet?Tingit , a startup out of Lithuania , wants to help masses restore their used clothing to its former resplendence with its newly launched fix marketplace .
The platform lets you use your phone to snap and upload a agile telecasting of upset item to get a quotation mark for repair or restoration . If you ’re felicitous with the quotation mark , you may pay through Tingit ’s app and then get off your stuff to the opt stamping ground shop class . After that it ’s just a case of waiting for a few days or weeks . No need to trawl through back alleys for specialist restorers and wrangle unfriendly store schedule . The platform takes all the slack .
There ’s just one catch for now : Tingit is only available in Lithuania , where the Vilnius - based inauguration debuted the avail in February . However , the inauguration has just evoke a € 500,000 pre - seed funding rung to keep scale the commercial enterprise , and CEO and co - founder Indrė Viltrakytė say it has its sights on dilate into other markets in Europe . That will likely happen afterward next year when the company will be look to raise a seed round .
Lithuania is home to way reuse marketplace giantVinted , so the country ’s entrepreneurs have pedigree in this area . Tingit is another gross mart period of play , but it calculate to connect people who own damaged / hard-pressed fashion point with businesses that can repair them .
“ I grow up with the people who started Vinted . So watch the caller go from a small , local shop to this global vast marketplace was really , really inspiring , ” Viltrakytė told TechCrunch . “ I do hope that we can achieve something similar with repair , and incur synergies with company that already make on the sustainability front . ”
Viltrakytė fall up with the idea for Tingit after working in fashion for years and growing frustrated by the industry ’s problems with sustainability and overconsumption . This is n’t her first experience as a tech entrepreneur , either : She worked for three twelvemonth with Vinted cobalt - founding father Justas Janauskas on a social medium inauguration for teenagers that saw some traction locally before they shut it down . She has also dabbled in digital way and crypto / web3 .
Still , a political program that handles physical repairs constitute a different case of challenge .
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“ I ’m a problem solver . So when I call up about something that is break , I get this impulse to fix it , ” she said . “ I personally tried to repair a lot of items [ … ] and it ’s always a vast headache , a dogfight . I had a Dyson pilus dryer , and it direct me six hebdomad to unionise a repair for many , many reasons . So I thought , you know , it ’s 2023 , there has to be a better way . And I front around and there was no expert way . So I just decided to make for with it in the end and see what it could look like . ”
Tingit currently connects users with resort and restoration servicing for apparel , shoe and accessories . This includes specialist renovation employment like sprucing up stool pigeon and handbags as well as more intimate services like teetotal cleanup .
The decision to focus on fashion is in the main because the four co - founders already had manufacture expertness to draw on , per Viltrakytė . But if they can build scale , she says there ’s no reason to stop there . repair for sports goodness , toy and consumer electronics could be possible succeeding avenue , but anything sounds possible , provided there ’s need for it and business to provide a help .
European Union regulations are a drive force here , withrequirements for right hand to repair come inalongsideexpanded ecodesign rule , which include plans for digital product passports . All of this is aimed at power a changeover to a more circular economic system so the bloc can meet its 2050 last - zero greenhouse gas pedal emissions mood goal .
The macroeconomic mood may also wager to a “ make do and mend ” hand . Viltrakytė say one of the startup ’s investor predict a ceding back is come . “ That ’s why he thinks repairs could be next wave , because the premature undulation was secondhand clothing , ” she said .
So far , Tingit ’s marketplace has facilitated more than 650 complete fix and fielded more than 2,500 repair requests from user . It ’s working with three local business to cater services , according to Viltrakytė — one handle repairs for clothing , another for shoe and cup of tea , and one provides dry cleanup services .
Upcycling and modding ( alteration ) are also part of Tingit ’s design , as is offering recycling . But Viltrakytė says specific adjustment ( i.e. tailoring ) are n’t a expert tantrum for the hands - off platform approach , as measurements are more accurate when do in person .
Shoe hangout make up 70 % of orders on the platform , currently , and its typical client is a “ busybodied workings ma ” seem for more effective ways to get stuff done .
Viltrakytė admits to being a little surprised there are n’t more manpower using the platform pay how many sneakerheads are male . But she suggest it could be partly down to a deficiency of awareness about the kind of restoration services that are useable .
“ I would really care to introduce this conception of seasonal maintenance , ” she said , pointing out that a new twain of shoes can have a much longer life if they ’re the right way wait after . A double - yearly repair serving could be peddle as a “ new drug abuse ” to invest in to make stuff last longer .
“ My personal finish is basically make repairs more like a drug abuse — I always say , like brushing your teeth , ” she added .
Prices for mending and restoration serve vary calculate on the complexness of the job — starting at € 9 for a protective discussion for footgear , € 25 + for a zipper replacement on vesture , all the way up to € 139 + for a premium purse renovation .
Viltrakytė noted the startup has had some very mellow - end items sent in for fix / restoration , such as a Hermès handbag worth € 10,000 . And given the rise in popularity of vintage clothing , fashion resale platform and 2d - hand marketplaces , there are some interesting ways a mending marketplace could cross with that wide course .
She says the company already gets a mickle of enquiries from mass sending in screenshots of items they ’ve see on 2nd - hand marketplaces like Vinted , ask how much it would cost to indemnify .
“ I suppose we can increase the value of used items , because people have no musical theme what can be done with , specifically , way items , ” she said . “ If you take a really bleed - down bag , if it ’s a sumptuousness bag , a well - made detail , you could [ doctor it ] not like new , but like 85 % new . ”
Tingit is originate as a business enterprise to consumer ( B2C ) marketplace , but Viltrakytė reckons there ’s opportunities to flourish into B2B2C.
“ We can be official representatives for brands — that ’s already a prove occupation model , ” she suppose . “ Also , we plan to do API integrations for retailers or other market like Vinted or Vestiaire Collective . ”
The startup is thinking about how it can further dial up its utilization of engineering science , too , to make it even less of a faff for people to get their stuff repaired . Viltrakytė said the company wants to work on using AI to automatise damage depth psychology and quote multiplication , which are manual appendage at present . So exploiter would n’t even need to take and upload a video of their item , and could just show it to the camera .
AI could also be used to automate the valuation of wearing apparel for resale and to generate data on what ’s circulate in the round economic system , which could be of interest to various businesses . Fashion assay-mark and product lifecycle tracking are other area Tingit is interested in explore .
Tingit ’s pre - seed funding round was moderate by Firstpick , a Lithuanian VC investment company and accelerator for tech startup in the Baltics . BADideas.fund ( Latvia ) , PurposeTech ( Czech Republic ) and Heartfelt Capital ( Germany ) also participate .
Commenting in a statement , Jonė Vaitulevičiūtė , managing partner at Firstpick , said , “ There is still a void of cognition when it come to leveraging technology to enhance sustainability . That is why we are super excited to see how Tingit will train consumers and help them produce sustainable habits . ”
