Meet the Pitch winner: Fashion startup Zipr set to shake up the secondhand retail market

Last night SmartCompany hosted its inaugural early stage startup pitch event, the Pitch, with local Sydney fashion startup Zipr taking home the top prize against nine other shortlisted candidates.

Zipr is a fashion startup looking to tap into the anticipated $605 billion social commerce market, by bringing video and e-commerce together in one seamless interaction.

It will allow both brands and users to sell their clothing, while targeting the correct consumers. The aim is to echo the kind of content taking over TikTok, founder Amber Linz explained last night in her pitch presentation.

Linz is a former product designer from Canva who left the unicorn to build the fashion app full time. Along with Linz, Zipr also has two senior engineers onboard from Atlassian and Zip, as well as a social media intern.

The app will largely target gen Z consumers, as 97% of gen Z use social media to both shop and find fashion inspiration.

Gen Z is also broadly interested in the sustainability aspect of fashion, choosing environmentally-conscious brands and turning to marketplaces for secondhand clothing.

But there are still deterrents to secondhand clothing, Linz points out. Concerns about size, fit and condition often sway buyers, as well as the lack of try-ons and returns.

And Linz knows first-hand how these deterrents feel for her generation.

“As a gen Z girl, I really don’t want to scroll endlessly through pages and pages of e-commerce websites,” Linz told the Pitch, explaining how her idea came to fruition.

Instead, she wants to receive curated content that matches her style, size and the quality she’s looking for. So that’s what Zipr aims to do.

The app will allow users to post a video sharing their style, make offers to other users and purchase through the app, and then meet up nearby to exchange the products.

Zipr is launching next week, and already has 50 fashion influencers on board to help “unite gen Z fashionistas on a global scale”.

Following last night’s win, Zipr will now also receive $100,000 in AWS Activate Credits, and one-on-one support sessions with Pin Payments.

Zipr also already has a pre-established advisory board, comprising of Isabella Rich, investor at Our Innovation Fund; Gary Peristein, former CEO of Specialty Fashion Group; and Andie Halas, founder of Thread Together.

Speaking with SmartCompany after being awarded the grand prize, Linz said it was “absolutely amazing” to be crowned the winner against such promising competition.

“It’s really going to help us scale up our business, and we’re definitely going to use the video capabilities and the AI capabilities in the future,” she said.

This time next year, Linz hopes to be taking the startup to the US, with “a couple 100,000 users” on the platform.