Our consumption model is inefficient and wasteful

The U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population, yet produces 12% of global waste. 

In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans dispose of has doubled to reach 80 pounds per person, per year. 

While a growing appetite for sustainable brands might suggest a shift in this trend, e-commerce sales data shows that households are still inadvertently wasteful.

This is especially true for new parents, who are faced with thousands of product choices and often make unnecessary purchases. As babies grow fast, products such as clothes are only used a few times, leading to massive clutter and waste.

There is a critical opportunity to reimagine consumption by starting at the beginning of life: birth.

We upgrade consumption, starting at the beginning: birth

For a fraction of retail prices, UpChoose members receive a set of organic clothing essentials curated from high-quality brands at each phase of growth, and swap sets when the baby is ready to size up.

We've leveraged technology to design a frictionless consumer experience, helping new parents simplify their life, and make more efficient purchases. 

Our first release: a smarter baby clothing service

New and expecting parents take our easy 5-step quiz to design a set based on their needs and preferences. They pick New or Preloved and select the date they want to receive their first set. Clothes are sourced from our partner brands (for New sets) or from existing member returns (for Preloved sets).

Customers pay a fixed monthly fee and use the clothes until their child is ready to size up. Then, they swap sets at no extra cost. Returned sets are made available to the next family. 

We recently launched a GoFundMe-like feature letting anyone create a personal page and receive gift contributions. Hundreds of users have already received gift contributions funding up to two years' worth of subscription.

300% growth year-to-date, 10X growth in MRR over 5 quarters

We currently have more than 750 customers in about 180 US cities across 40 states. We've been able to grow Monthly Recurring Revenues (MRR) 10x over the last 5 quarters and total revenues grew 300% year-to-date compared to last year. We have seen a 70-75% retention rate after 6 months for our subscription service. We also currently have a pipeline of 17K+ qualified sign-ups.

We’ve attracted the attention of big-name apparel brands such as Levi Strauss & Co who is helping fund our tech platform to enable more retailers to participate in the circular economy. 

UpChoose has also been recognized for its unique approach to reimagining the future of consumption.

A game-changer for parents when they need it most

In addition to enjoying adorable high-quality clothes at a fraction of retail prices, new moms and dads are also acknowledging how UpChoose helps them simplify their lives, reduce decision fatigue, and make healthier choices for their families. We currently have an NPS score of 74 from our members. 

We’re building an incredible community pioneering a new model and helping us grow through word-of-mouth!

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Flexible subscription and focus on payments and distributed costs

We earn revenue through: 

1. Subscription—monthly subscription fees (average $49 per month). 
2. Gifting—users receive gift contributions to help fund their program.
3. Purchases—users buy sets and can sell them back after use.

About two-thirds of our customers are subscribers. A subset of these subscriptions is funded through gifts. We see gifting as a huge market opportunity for UpChoose and gift makers as primary and repeat users. 

This enables us to have a competitive pricing model and attractive unit economics—we generate a 70% gross margin on preloved sets, while customers pay up to 80% less than retail prices—and drives accessibility and adoption by a large audience.

$32B+ children's clothing market in the U.S. alone

Our initial focus is on the $32B children’s clothing market in the U.S., which is growing 50% faster than men’s and women's markets. 

UpChoose taps into powerful trends: 

• The desire for healthy and sustainable living, especially among millennial parents.
• The success of subscription-driven business models.
• The growth of the resale market.

We estimate that our TAM will be at the intersection of three key markets: the $152B sustainable product market, the $41B resale market, and the $204B global childrenswear market.

Redefining baby clothing and creating a new category

We are building a new category and we enjoy a first to market competitive edge and near unbeatable financial incentive. We built a unique model that lets parents save up to 80% on organic clothing brands, dramatically reducing the cost of high-quality baby clothes, all while reducing clutter and waste.

Some companies or alternatives offer one aspect of our model, but our innovation is to combine all the pieces—bundles, subscriptions, organic, preloved, after use—in a frictionless, affordable service.

Household consumption, reinvented

Today, we’re addressing the inefficiencies, high costs, and waste associated with buying children's clothing.

Tomorrow, we’ll be tackling the same inefficiencies associated with other areas of parents' purchases and household consumption.

Our immediate goals are to develop our children's clothing service to cover the first 12 years of life, introduce more options to reach a wider audience, and invest in our operations and tech platform. 

Once we’ve successfully established ourselves within this space, we'll expand to other needs for our first audience—parents— and develop other offerings that simplify their lives and reimagine how they choose, use and dispose of products like toys, books, maternity clothing, and furniture.

Bootstrapped and ready for the next phase of growth

The founder has personally invested $100K+, with a friends & family investment of $25K. We also received a $25K grant from Levi's. Since then, we've focused on building a unique service and vibrant customer base. We have used our revenue and non-dilutive capital from Stripe Capital and Clearbanc to fund our growth in the past 12 months.

We are raising funds to build the infrastructure required to handle growth, expand our team, invest in marketing initiatives, and develop our tech platform. We want a community of supporters and together, we’ll build a new consumption model that works better for our children's health and our planet. We hope you join us!

Prior to UpChoose, Ali spent eight years at J.P. Morgan, where he pioneered Impact Investing and helped build the J.P. Morgan Impact Investing team. He helped design breakthrough initiatives addressing the world's biggest health and sustainability challenges—such as the world's first venture capital fund dedicated to Dementia research—and invested in early-stage companies leveraging technology to solve climate and social challenges. 

He realized these challenges are rooted in our lifestyle and consumption model and that there was a huge opportunity to design better alternatives.

Ali holds a Master of International Economics from Columbia University, a Master of International Affairs from Sciences Po Paris, and a BA in Philosophy from La Sorbonne.