FJONG – Globally scalable shared closet

FJONG is a Norwegian green tech start-up, with a mission to revolutionize the way we consume clothes. We have successfully tested clothes sharing through renting and lending since 2017: 1.300 individuals and ~30 businesses have lent out clothes more than 12.000 times to more than 6.000 different customers - achieved with no paid marketing. Financed partly by a crowdfunding-round that in 2018 set double Norwegian record for crowdfunding; highest amount raised and highest female share! FJONG has learned about customer preferences for clothes sharing and verified that we engage our customers and offer a product our customers want. We have also learned a lot about the logistics involved and tech-development required to scale this up. Our next big challenge is to make the operations scalable so that our offering can scale up. Our goal is to expand to several countries at once by the end of 2021. In order to achieve this, FJONG will transition to be a digital enabler of clothes rental. Like an “AirBnb” for clothes, where FJONG does not own any physical assets. In such a model, FJONG only owns the customer and outfit journey - fueled by AI-driven utilization of data and block-chain technology to keep track of the location of the clothes. Our model of asset light clothes sharing is unique interntaionaly. The model requires much upfront capital for technology development, for later to be able to scale. Although we get relatively much investor interest, especially from "grass-rot" investors, and we stet double Norwegian record in crowdfunding in 2018, there is still significant risk involved, which makes it rather difficult for us to raise the capital required to realize our plans. The Corona-crisis has made this even harder. Funding via EIC accelerator would therefore be extremely helpful for us.