Faster and greener fashion delivery made possible by Goods

Accelerace invest in Danes who will bring down time and pollution for clothes delivery in the US. 

After witnessing the unsatisfying delivery landscape in the US first hand, three Danes are challenging the standard of Amazon in the realm of delivery for fashion brands. Delivery times should be closer to the European standard and unnecessary pollution should be avoided.

In 2020, Alexander Langhede, Niels Thomsen and Marcus Merrild, independently of each other, moved to New York from Denmark. They didn’t move there with the intention of starting their own company and taking on one of the biggest companies in the world all by themselves, but three years later, that is exactly what ended up happening. With the expectation, from having purchased clothes from EU-based companies such as Zalando and ASOS, of a quick delivery, they realised that in the US, clothes delivery is neither quick or environmentally friendly. That realisation sparked what is now Goods.

Challenging the status quo with improved logistics

After witnessing the slow delivery time, closer to a week than a couple of days, they wondered why this was the case and why nothing had been done. What they discovered was that the main reason for prolonged delivery times in the US, is the inefficient logistics of clothes companies. Even the biggest brands, such as Nike, have their deliveries shipped from one of very few central storage locations, and is sent across the country in a truck. A journey of upwards of 3.000 km, which can be done quicker by plane, with the caveat that it pollutes 8 times more. The team behind Goods have come up with a simple, but brilliant solution, that should bring down both delivery time and pollution in the biggest cities.

Fashion brands have wanted to do ship-from-store for a long time because they all see the many benefits to it, but they haven’t had the technical infrastructure to handle it before. Fortunately, significant progress has been made in the last 2-3 years, and we are helping them with the final steps – Alexander Langhede, CEO and co-founder at Goods.

Goods will help the fashion brands bring down the transportation distance by delivering from local stores that has the clothes in stock, instead of shipping it across the country for a one time delivery. When an order is placed, Goods’ software locates the closest store that has the item in stock, and dispatches it, through local partners using e-bikes, to the customer for delivery that same evening. And customers won’t have to pay for express delivery. Goods even collects return items and helps the fashion brands reselling the item, once again working towards a greener fashion industry.

What Goods is doing has the potential to significantly decrease the environmental footprint in an industry that has been heavily criticised exactly for its negative impact on the planet. It is a brilliantly simple way of delivering a far better service for consumers, whilst also making an industry much more sustainable. It fits perfectly with what we want to support with our investments – Claus Kristensen, partner at Accelerace.

Partnering up with Claus, David and all of Accelerace has been a great experience – right from the first dialogue started in late 2022. We enjoyed the Allstars program and are now getting a lot of valuable feedback out of our monthly calls. Accelerace seems to be the perfect partner at this early stage, and we’re so happy to have them onboard this journey – Alexander Langhede, CEO and co-founder at Goods.

The pre-seed round is also joined by Allon Ventures, who previously have invested in Spotify and Lyft, and 14 highly profiled business angels from the delivery, fashion and tech industries, who have been involved with Uber, Amazon Nike, Klarna, amongst others.

Goods launches in New York

The investment fits perfectly with the plan of a launch in New York within the near future. The launch is planned to be joined by multiple international fashion brands, who needs to find an edge in a very competitive space. Both Goods and Accelerace believes that the decreased delivery time will give exactly that edge. In the future, Goods will be expanding to other key cities across the US to leverage the extensive nationwide store networks that most fashion brands have. Target cities include Los Angeles and Miami.