Startups Venture

Startups to Watch: Parade, 3DLOOK, Hygienica, Joe Coffee

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Crunchbase News typically covers larger funding rounds, however we think these startups are worth highlighting for their interesting approaches despite their smaller raises.

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Parade

For those worried about the fate of their local Victoria’s Secret, meet Parade. The 1-year-old company, started by Cami Tellez and Jack DeFuria, recently raised an additional $3 million  from existing investors, such as Lerer Hippeau, and new investor, Vice Ventures. Parade has raised $6.5 million in total, the company said.

The direct-to-consumer company offers four styles of underwear in diverse colors for $9 each. The startup boasts that it made more than $2.5 million in revenue over the past seven months.

Women spend more than $17 billion on underwear a year, with the majority—80 percent—spent in brick-and-mortar stores prior to COVID-19, according to Tellez.

“As an online brand creating a beautiful and sustainable product at a value $9 price point, our rate of growth increased during COVID-19,” Tellez said via email. “With this new capital injection from companies like Vice Ventures, at a crucial time in the market, Parade is focused on continuing to build their favorite full-stack underwear brand and accelerating our growth to take market share in the next 12 months.”

Vice Ventures is known for its seed-stage fund investing in good companies operating in “bad” industries. In February, Vice participated in a $10 million in Lucy Goods, operating as a nicotine alternative company.

Parade’s underwear packaging.

3DLOOK

Keeping with our clothing theme, everyone seeks the perfect pair of jeans. Startup 3DLOOK says it can make that possible. It combines computer vision, deep learning and 3D technology to digitize human body data to bring fit and sizing intelligence to the apparel industry.

The San Mateo, California-based company was founded in 2016 and recently closed on a $1 million pre-Series A round led by ICU Ventures. To date, the company says it has raised $4.2 million in several seed rounds.

More than 25 fashion and uniform companies are using 3DLOOK’s tool globally, and the company said it will deploy in 1,000 stores within the month. The funding will be used to scale its research and development team and support customers who need contactless measurement tools to run their businesses.

3DLook’s body scanning process.

Hygienica

As we all figure out how to live in a world with COVID-19, startups like San Diego-based Hygienica are probably in the right business. The startup, which develops disinfecting technology, has raised a $1 million seed round led by Impala Ventures.

The new investment will be used to grow its engineering, sales and marketing teams, as well as invest in new designs for its technology in the dental, medical and automotive industries.

The company created a sprayer, the HX Pro, that can atomize a disinfectant to a really itty-bitty size, but uses an Ultra Low Volume airless platform instead of electrostatic and kills up to 99.99 percent of viruses, bacteria and pathogens. Hygienica’s HX Pro Plus Model is expected to come out later this month.

Joe Coffee

Coffee drinkers will like this next one. Seattle-based Joe Coffee brewed up another $1.3 million in seed funding led by Craft Ventures. The 6-year-old company provides mobile ordering and pay networks to independent coffee shops.

Joe Coffee’s mobile ordering app.

The new funding comes just months after securing $500,000 in a corporate round from Gravity Payments, according to Crunchbase data. This brings Joe Coffee’s total funding to date to $3.5 million.

With the new funding, the company said it will further invest in product and sales to enhance the user experience and drive increased revenue.

More than 1,000 shops are using its platform and many of them have seen a 50 percent increase in revenue and are now at or near pre-COVID-19 levels of revenue, according to a written statement.

Photos courtesy of Parade, 3DLook and Joe Coffee
Illustration: Dom Guzman

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