Venturing into Fashion Tech

Build It Series: Pitching My Fashion Tech Idea to Old Men in Grey Suits with Launderd's Chelsea

• Beyond Form • Episode 58

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Launderd's Fundraising Journey:
12 months on since we heard how Chelsea Van De Kamp, founder of Launderd, planned to launch her fashion repair and restoration platform, she's now back on the show but this time with all guns blazing as she begins her fundraising journey.
Chelsea shares why fundraising now is the right time for the company and her strategies for using storytelling to captivate investors. Her candid reflections on Launderd's progress offer a compelling look into the evolving landscape for women in entrepreneurship.

Hear Chelsea's original fundraising pitch to investors.

Lessons Learned from Investors:
Mastering the art of pitching to investors is not easy. Something Chelsea reveals that she underestimated. Especially pitching to traditional investors and the unique hurdles she faces in a male-dominated venture capital landscape. She shares tactics for aligning her presentations with investor priorities like scalability and ROI, her experiences in various pitching formats, from speed dating events to formal meetings, and the growing support for female founders in the investment world.

If you're looking to fundraise on the west coast of USA, this episode is for you!

Check out Launderd: launderd.com
Connect with Chelsea and hear her new investor pitch: linkedin.com/in/chelseacolecompass

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The show is recorded from Beyond Form, a fashion tech innovation platform. We build, invest, and educate fashion tech entrepreneurs and startups. We’d love to hear your feedback, so let us know if you’d like to hear a certain topic. Email us at podcast@beyondform.io. If you’re an entrepreneur or fashion tech startup looking for studio support, check out our website: beyondform.io

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

Hello, Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, founder and CEO of Beyond Form, and welcome to the special series Build it, where I speak to founders and their clients as to how they're building fashion technologies. This series gives you a glimpse into topics such as personal struggles, technical challenges, working in fashion and more.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

On today's episode, I'm going back to the west coast of the USA, and specifically the sunny state of California, where we have again on today's show, Chelsea, who is the founder and CEO of Launderd. Now, we had Chelsea on the show 12 months ago when she just first started embarking on her startup journey. Since then, she's had traction, she's's had clients, she's been able to grow the platform and, most importantly, she started to go on her fundraising journey. However, it's not all been easy with pitching, especially in front of men with grey hair, grey suits and not understanding the word repair.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

And I actually asked an investor, this a female investor.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I asked her why do they give us this lip service? Can we ask for honest and blunt feedback? And she said it's just part of it. It's part of being an investor as well, but I think it's something you just have to take on the chin and decode a little bit as well. I think there's been a lot of.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

Let's get this conversation going with Chelsea on today's episode of Venturing into Fashion Tech. How are you today, Chelsea?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I'm good thanks. How are you doing?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I'm good. Thank you, looking forward to today's conversation. We're doing something a little bit differently today. We're actually getting you to pitch live on the screen. We heard from you 12 months ago. A lot has happened since then, especially since we started working with you. You're on your fundraising journey and our previous episode in this series was another startup in our portfolio also raising their round as well, so it's kind of like a nice continuation from our previous round of conversation.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I just want to set the scene for our listeners again in regards to where you're based and what Laundered is trying to do. So Laundered is based on the West Coast in the USA and, in terms of the value of VC investments made into California amounted to over 81 billion US dollars in 2023. So that just gives us some context regarding the scene then, in terms of fundraising, making it the state that most dollars raised and accounting for over half of the USA's major funding activity. Obviously, in your state you have Silicon Valley and that's a huge surge and amounts of money going into that because of that scene there, and compared to the whole of Europe, which has only raised 62.7 billion US dollars in 2023. So I think, just to contextually put that into perspective, the entire state of California raised more than the entire continent. I think that says everything, and the fact that you've been able to get a lot of pitches very quickly and a lot of feedback so far in your fundraising journey over the last six months, kind of like, tells us everything, and we're going to dive into some of that feedback in today's conversation.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

Only 30% of startups rate success, access to capital and investment positively in Germany, according to the 2024 German Startup Monitor Report German Startup Monitor Report. So just obviously, germany is not the same as California, but I think this is indicative, regardless of where you are in the world. This was less than previous years. It was 33% in 2023 and 37.2% in 2022 respectively. So the confidence is going down and I'd be interested to hear you, chelsea, how you're feeling about the whole fundraising activity at the moment For US-based female founders, which obviously you are one of those, last year also saw a rise to 22.8% of the total funding raised by them, according to PitchBook and Deloitte, which is a great number.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

It's going up. However, it doesn't necessarily mean it's getting easier for female founders, especially those in tech and the vc world, which is still dominated by men, and I know that you have some feedback about that subject a little bit later on. Yeah, for a startup like launder, the point is heightened and we're learning learning how to adapt storytelling for, basically, old men in grey suits yeah, exactly. So before we get onto that, it's been 12 months since we started working with you. You've now come to the crossroads of needing to fundraise, so why don't you give our listeners as to why you've chosen to go on this fundraising path?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah, absolutely, and thank you for the intro. Yeah, finally, time to fundraise, which initially I thought would be the really exciting part of it, right, being able to showcase what your startup is about, why this is going to change the world. And then, quickly, I kind of found that it is a journey, and it is a journey uphill. So it's really about putting in the reps and the numbers, and you won't be good at your pitch until you're absolutely sick of your pitch, which is what I've learned pretty quickly.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

And in terms of Laundered and the stage Laundered is at. Why does fundraising from you know angels or professional VCs make sense for you as a founder?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I think venture capital and angel money is really going to help me grow as a solo founder. I think one of the biggest limitations of being a founder on your own is that you only have so much bandwidth, and so getting that funding early will really help me propel the business forward in a way that I wouldn't be able to do by myself, and so that's why now is the perfect time to look for that funding, knowing that I wouldn't be able to do by myself, and so that's why now is the perfect time to look for that funding, knowing that I can't necessarily lean on friends and family to get me where I need to go in terms of angel money.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

It's, of course, because you have reached a certain stage with Laundered as well. Last time we had you on the podcast, you hadn't actually gone to market with your solution, and now you've had customers.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yes.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

From all over the state and actually out of state as well, which I think is amazing. Can you tell us a bit about what you have been seeing in terms of clients and why is that a good traction point to go to the next stage?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah, After we've launched into market with our MVP, we quickly saw people interested and visiting our site, which was so exciting. Pretty soon we started accumulating new customers and, as that kind of ramped up exponentially month after month, we were able to get to a place where you know it's a good problem to have, we're at capacity and so now is the time that we have paying excited customers who are spreading launders through word of mouth. Now is the time to really open up the floodgates and support more people coming in.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

We're going to hear your pitch in a second, but I think it's every founder's dream to be in that position. Okay, you now have paying clients strangers. These are not, you know, your family members asking for, you know, a service and doing you a favor. These are actually strangers that are needing their goods repaired and clean and so forth. I know, every time we've had a conversation you've had, you know, a lead and somebody wants their like bibutans or their dior chanel fixing, yeah, in some capacity, which I think is great.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I could, obviously, for those of you watching, you can't obviously see, but there is chelsea and I can just imagine in my head all the time yeah, essentially, which is, which is great. So I want to do something a little bit differently this time around, which we haven't yet done on the podcast. So, for those of you that are watching on youtube, we're now going to hear chelsea's old or first pitch, shall we say, for fundraising, just to give you some context as to how that pitch, you know, came to life, and then we're going to talk about some of the feedback that chelsea's been given but then has obviously subsequently given the Berto a new pitch afterwards.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Perfect, I'm ready. Hi, my name is Chelsea and I am the founder of Laundered, the online repair service for luxury fashion. After 15 years of building iconic brands like UGG and Chipotle, I'm now building Laundered, and it all started from my own personal experience. Buying my first luxury handbag, I found myself quickly stuck between a rock and a hard place myself quickly stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wanted to get as much wear out of this bag as possible, but I also wanted to maintain its perfect condition. But how can I realistically do both? When I started searching for solutions that would help me keep this bag in perfect shape, I was shocked to find that the only person there to help me was my local cobbler, who didn't exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

And then I realized if there are 12 million luxury fashion consumers in California alone, why are we still settling for antiquated repair services that haven't innovated since the 1900s? And that's why I created Laundered. It starts with a simple online platform that allows access to high quality repair while giving you everything a cobbler can't the trust, transparency and experience that we know this luxury customer craves. And so, after six months of MVP, we're already seeing great traction. We have repaired over $200,000 worth of luxury items, and 20% of our clientele have already come back for more. And what's best is that the actual size of the prize is huge. Research shows that 77% of luxury fashion consumers are willing to invest in quality repair, and so if we could just capture California market, that would equate to a lot of money, and $17 billion in fact, and so we're looking forward to growing this brand to capture that audience and far beyond. Won't you join us? Thanks?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

Thank you so much for your pitch, chelsea. No problem, obviously, exposing yourself to the world as well, and it's not easy. How did it feel when you did your first pitch to somebody beyond our Eternal team?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Oh, it was so nerve wracking, but it's really good to rip off the bandaid and just get the first one done. Honestly, my first pitch in front of potential investors went horribly. It couldn't have gone worse. Everything just fell apart that could fall apart. The guy who was timing me got the timing wrong. I was the first to go up in a group of six. It was just. It was very nerve wracking, but I definitely told myself it can't get more terrible than this.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

The next one's going to be be better and it has been so far and you have really put yourself out there, which obviously I'm really glad to see. You've done speed pitching, online, live pitching, live pitching in person on stage, pitching private pitches, like the whole hog which I think when you first start going on that journey as a founder even if you're not fundraising actually it's a skill that you have to train literally all the time and I think many founders really underestimate just how hard that is to get a story across to an audience succinctly within a timeframe, and it's something you need to keep doing. In terms of the pitching ceiling, you know you talked a little bit about it there, them In terms of the West Coast of the USA, where you're located in California, how would you describe that scene and how have you been able to get so many pitches so quickly?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah, it's definitely a booming entrepreneur scene here, mostly in Northern California, but it's starting to trickle down South. I would say that Silicon Valley has really set us up for success in many ways. However, I think they've also set the tone for what a good investment is to some of these investors, which makes it difficult for someone who is doing something a little different to really capture their attention straight away. I think there's a lot of opportunity here. There's lots of startup help and support in terms of local agencies that are really pushing for entrepreneurship and the more localized market. So that's where you'll get like the speed dating pitch events. You'll get a lot of like fast 60 second, 90 second pitch events. I think it's also a way for them to just test the market and see what's out there without actually putting in the effort to go out and seek places to invest.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

Which I think is great because, being obviously in Paris, where we are in Western Europe, it's not that easy to get in front of people that quickly, especially in your news of this fundraising scene, but you have put yourself into people with actual money so it just seems like there are rich people like left, right and center.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

yeah absolutely I. I think, especially southern california uh, for better or for worse, we do have a wealthy amount of people that live here, so not only are they sometimes generous, but they're also looking for great opportunities to build their wealth and I love all the different pitch formats so far, like which one do you feel is more suited to you and which one do you think founders should really be practicing for?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I think there's different approaches that I've really liked. Having the ability to have slides has been key for me as well and a very good point of differentiation from other people pitching, but not all pitch events here allow you to have slides. I have done a 60 second pitch with no slides, which is near impossible, but those also work as well, especially if it's in a speed dating environment. You're getting in front of multiple investors all in one go, and that actually gives you the opportunity to take feedback from one and quickly pivot in your pitch to get to the next one, which has definitely helped me make my pitch exponentially better. You know, pitch after pitch.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

And I mentioned in the introduction the fact that female founders are getting more funding now, especially within the US. Do you sense that when you're going out there? I know that you've obviously pitched in front of female-led angel groups as well. For example, how has the nuances there been for you as a solo female founder?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

the nuances there being. For you as a solo female founder, I will say there has been effort to invest in more female founders because we have been so underfunded in the past. So you're seeing a lot of female only venture capital firms or people who are seeking female only led rounds. It's still a lot less, although it's more than what we had. It's still a lot less than our male counterparts, but I think the tide is changing, especially when you look at California's results as well. Female founders actually provide more return on investment than male founders, so I always use that in my back pocket as well if I need to sway anyone.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

But I hopefully see you being that statistic very soon then, returning money to the investors much more than men. Yes, let's just go back to the initial pitch then, chelsea. You've had some really good feedback so far, positive and negative. What have been your top insights to date?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I think the very top one that has been the most important for me is really starting to think about what the investors are looking for and what are the buzzwords that they need to hear. At the very start, my pitch really just went out and simply explained what we do, but I realized, as the investor is listening to this pitch, they're thinking of just a couple of key things. Investors listening to this pitch they're thinking of just a couple of key things, no-transcript. They think is this scalable? How is this going to scale? This is very difficult to scale, and then you can totally see the light leave from their eyes, and so I really had to work hard to evolve this pitch that I just shared and make it to be tailored to what they're looking for. What are the exciting points that are going to give them FOMO if they can't invest in this?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

if they can't invest in this, in this I mentioned in introduction. You know pitching in front of old men with white hair and gray suits. I know that you've had to adapt your pitch accordingly as well. How have you done that?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

yeah, that was a shock actually. I um, especially in this speed dating event that I went to, which I think I had one female investor and 11 old white male investors. The topic of Lonsard itself is not something easily relatable to them, which I understand. I think few of them had some examples of maybe their wife had something that needed fixing once, but they still didn't understand the full scope of the opportunity or how we were going to do this, and so I've had to get creative.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Honestly, I've had to do a lot of analogies about. You know, would you take your Maserati to Jiffy Lube, which, if you don't know what Jiffy Lube is, it's like a really bad garage or service station here, just trying to draw the comparison of where we're lacking in this space and so they can kind of understand the need. But also I've really tried to find investors that are aligned with laundered. So, whether they're very active in the fashion space or they're female investors that have had this issue and totally empathize with this consumer, I think tailoring more towards there is a lot easier for me to get the point across and to show the value of Launderd.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

At the same time, though, you're saying that they have not necessarily received that well in terms of their messaging, but, at the same time, we must remember that quite often, it's not the right investor that you're pitching in front of, and we found that, obviously, or you have found, shall we say, that a lot of them are giving you lip service and you're trying to cut through. You know that bullshit that they're giving to you as well, so how have you tried to make sense of it all?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

yeah, that's been a tricky one, especially personally for me. I'm a very straightforward person and I want to save us all time as well. Like, let's just get to the point. And I actually asked an investor this at a event I went to a while ago, a female investor. I asked her why do they give us this lip service, what you know, can we ask for honest and blunt feedback? And she said it's just part of it.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

It's part of being an investor as well that a lot of the times they don't want to let you down, they don't want to crush your spirit in this entrepreneurship journey, mostly because they've been there and they get it and they understand that it's not a fit for everyone and there could be another investor. But I think it's something you just have to take on the chin and decode a little bit as well. I think there's been a lot of signals or responses that I can tell that they're not interested, but you know they're not going to go out and say it they're just being polite, basically exactly, yeah, so you get used to learning those tells eventually.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I think this is really important, though, for a lot of founders that they really underestimate the time required to prepare yourself for that journey, whether that's the pitch or, as you say, reading the body language, trying to understand who you're speaking to, and so on and so forth. That's taken quite a lot of time for you, no.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

It's really a lesson in emotional intelligence as well, really being able to be honest with yourself and understand the feedback and get an idea of where they're coming from. It takes some time and practice and you'll start to see the patterns from investor to investor and kind of clue into what they're trying to tell you.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

So how has the pitch changed? Then? You did mention some things earlier, you putting in different types of terminology and buzzwords. For example, one of the things that we found along the way is that the notion of repair is just not sexy, especially to those old men in gray suits, and it's about telling the story in a different way. How did you come to that realization that the word repair was just a turner for them?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

yeah, I started noticing, maybe through that emotional intelligence course as well, of going through this so many times, that that seemed to be the word that would turn them off. I think with that word repair it's so loaded. It's not only in being unsexy but in the ability to scale. You think about bag per bag or shoe per shoe. Repair is a stake to time and effort and that is not going to get you to a billion dollar response. So I think that has been a huge change in our pitch. We have pivoted not completely away from repair, but we've really showcased what the broader solution could be. So it's no longer a repair platform, it is an end-to-end maintenance opportunity and platform. So that kind of gets the full scope of where we could go with laundered. That could also include future things like marketplace repair or insurance. I think it starts to be more appealing to these people looking for something that's scalable.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

The other thing that you find along the way is that you've had to emphasize the business opportunity a lot more. So, going back to those statistics in your pitch the fact that there are 12 million luxury consumers just in the state of California, for example A lot of investors know how you're going to capitalize on that huge number, haven't they?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah, totally. And I've actually gone to a point where I've expanded beyond California with those metrics and really shown like, hey, if we could capture just 1% of the US market, that's huge. That's $77 billion of opportunity. So that number and those kind of key buzzwords and points are what really makes the light in their eyes shine through. And then they start to kind of reverse engineer Okay, how do we get there? How do we make this work for that prize?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

And I think it's interesting because quite often here in Europe or the EU, we forget sometimes how large the US is and California is literally like its own little country. Yeah, the rest of the other states?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

It's crazy. I think we're like the fourth largest economy in the world or something crazy like that. Like it's huge, it's huge.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

And then, just going back to my introduction as well, the fact that there has been so much funding into the state of California eight to one billion US dollars Do you think that plays in favor for technologies or platforms, with fashion tech for you specifically?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah, absolutely I think, especially when you combine fashion tech for you specifically. Yeah, absolutely I think. Especially when you combine fashion tech with a solution that is maybe more sustainable or circular, you're going to have alarm bells ringing on investors' heads. They're going to want to know what the solution is. It's very big here, especially with new legislation that we're seeing that's similar to the EU. So sustainability is super hot and if it's the tech platform, it's even hotter.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

As always, even if there's no traction yet. But you have traction though, so that's good.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yeah.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

So then, my final question is what is your advice to other entrepreneurs looking to embark on their fundraising journey?

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

I would say just stick with it. It is a roller coaster. You're going to have highs, you're going to have serious lows, but it's a numbers game at the end of the day, and with each pitch you're getting closer to perfecting your deck, perfecting what you're saying, finding the right investor. It's really just a journey, so it's it's worth pursuing and going through.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

you just have to stick with it I think it's very important to remember, as you said earlier in the episode, is the fact that it is a numbers game. You need to get yourself in front of as many people as much as possible. You know, I always just think of you know that lady gaga, quite where she goes, there could be 100 people in the room, but all you need is that one.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

Yes, Exactly, exactly and any. I know One. Yes, yeah, just one. I'll take one Any opportunity as well. Just take it up. It could be a dud, it could be. There's no investors there, but, end of the day, you're getting your reps in and you're learning something and getting more confident in what your pitch is going to be and for any investors listening to this episode.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

We're going to link, obviously in the description notes, a link to laundered and also some notes about the fundraising round as well. So if you're interested in you know those buzzwords of repair, take the fashion sedentary, you go to launder. So I just want to finish off this episode chelsea with a quick fire round of questions. So the first answer that comes to your head are you ready? Sure is it fundraising heaven or fundraising hell? Both, both. Okay. One thing you wished you knew before going on that fundraising journey what investors are looking for.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I didn't know that up front a word to describe the last 12 months of growth um hard work follow the money or follow the right investor? The right investor best tip from your experience on pitching reps basically, do as much as you can, right as many as you can in front of anyone.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

That do not be shy.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang:

I will tell a taxi driver, I will tell everyone on the moon and just yeah, get it in yeah, it's quite funny when you say to us, um, to the beyond form team, that you're just practicing your car constantly.

Chelsea Van De Kamp:

You're driving yeah, I'm commuting and and I'll just practice it I'll turn the radio off and there's an hour of solid repetition, so it works thank you so much for your time, chelsea thank you so much you.

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