David Allan soaks up his new gig as CEO of Tagless Style in the downtown Little Rock offices of Few.
Rod Ford’s new Little Rock early-stage venture capital firm XCelerate Capital has invested $250,000 in Tagless Style, the ARK Challenge and Innovate Arkansas firm that partnered with Goodwill of Arkansas to “upcycle” second-hand clothes.
The funding will be used to rapidly expand the customer base and product selection, said Tagless CEO David Allan. XCelerate was launched early this year as a private, seed-stage venture fund focused on early-stage tech startups across the region.
Tagless was developed by the Few design firm of Little Rock and run through the fourth installment of the ARK Challenge startup accelerator, held last fall in Little Rock. It brought on Allan as CEO following the 14-week boot camp. Allan guided another Innovate Arkansas firm, Acorn Hours, through ARK 4 and put it on hold to join the Tagless team.
Tagless is a sustainable subscription clothing service currently devoted to men in which customers provide their style preferences and Tagless stylists provide clothes from Goodwill that fit those preferences. The clothes are “upcycled” and packaged to look as if they came straight from a department store.
The XCelerate funding round represents Tagless’ first outside investment.
“XCelerate Capital was attracted to the Tagless team because of their disruptive concept of upcycling, returning second-hand clothing to department-store quality without the environmental impact of manufacturing new clothing,” Ford said in a news release. “Their business model creates tremendous value for the consumer while delivering upon the sustainability promise of a positive environmental, social and economic impact through the reuse of materials.”
Ford said the Tagless model meets all three of his fund’s early-stage funding criteria: disrupting a marketplace, cult following and expansive growth opportunity.
Allan said XCelerate strengthens what was already a strong team of partners with Few and Goodwill, and its investment and mentorship will play a crucial role in the long-term success of Tagless.
“XCelerate’s active investment model provides much more than just funding to our business and it feels like we are truly partners in a successful outcome,” he said.
Ford said Tagless and its potential represent another component to the growing Arkansas tech startup ecosystem.
“In my opinion, this is exactly how a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem should work where programming ideates and incubates a disruptive idea that is attractive enough to secure first-round financing to accelerate the business to a national scale,” he said.
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