Men’s Personal Shopper Modomoto Acquires The Cloakroom In Roll-Up

Eventually the whole Shoedazzle / Birchbox etc. business model (get outfits, try them out, keep what you like, return the rest) would make it to the men’s market and we’ve seen many such models launch. The twist is that this time is personal, with (I never really believe this, but let’s go with it) an online personal shopper picking out a style for you every time. But I digress. In the UK the front-runner in this game is Thread. But in continental Europe, each tiny country (we have a lot) has their own version.

So a roll-up is always in order in these instances. Thus, German-player Modomoto is making its first acquisition of Dutch-Danish The Cloakroom. Terms were not disclosed, but no doubt the investors were keen to get in on a bigger player. The roll-up mirrors what happened in the US, such as the acquisition by Nordstrom of Trunk Club.

The Cloakroom was launched in 2013 and with their team of 50 in Amsterdam, it is the local champion in Benelux and Scandinavia. The company will continue to run The Cloakroom brand in their markets and cofounders Asbjørn Jørgensen and Kasper Brandi Petersen will join the management board of Curated Shopping Group.

At the same time Modomoto has raised some cash from Kees Koolen (an advisor and investor in Uber, and former CEO of Booking.com).

The move is being spun as the creation of the “Curated Shopping Group”. In reality it’s an acquisition which is probably the start of a roll-up across Europe as investors call time on going it alone in one market.

This new group will have under its wing some 250 employees, 300,000 customers in 7 markets and what it claims is “tens of millions” in annual net-revenue in 2015.

Early player Modomoto has benefitted from its timing four years ago to build a solid base in Germany, Austrian and Switzerland.

“Curated shopping represents a multi-billion dollar opportunity and our aim is to be the dominant player. This space is all about customer loyalty,” says Andreas Fischer, CEO of Modomoto and now Curated Shopping Group, who says running the full stack from styling to distribution is part of its special sauce.

Modomoto was founded in 2011 and has tended to eschew big venture capital investment, although it has taken some from Connect Ventures. Their main competitor in the curated shopping space is Outfittery which has raised $37.81M in four rounds from nine Investors.