All parents know that raising children is expensive. Especially in those early years, when they quickly outgrow clothes or toys, leaving parents in an endless cycle of buying new things when the old ones are barely worn or worn.
Get into Children, a new Chicago-based e-commerce startup that aims to give consumers greater access to discounted baby and children's products by partnering with big brands, retailers, and clearance companies for their overstocks and returns. At the same time, he says, it can help prevent excess stock and clearance items, such as children's clothing, from ending up in landfills, which is clearly not good for the environment.
Kidsy doesn't just focus on clothing. She sells new and open box items (aka new but returned), such as strollers, car seats, toys, travel items, nursery furniture, and also “other baby essentials.”
Kidsy's founders are Indian-origin former business journalist Shraysi Tandon and Turkish-origin software engineer Sinan Sari, who also co-founded the Y Combinator-backed SaaS startup. Cuboh ( a startup which has just been sold to competitor ChowNow). The pair came together in April 2022 to start the company, which recently closed what Tandon described as $1 million “oversubscribed” in pre-seed funding.
“Almost all big retailers like Amazon, Macy's, Target, Kohl's, Walmart, Bloomingdales don't replenish customer returns because they require too much capital and labor to do so,” Tandon, who serves as CEO of Kidsy, told TechCrunch . . “These items are typically shipped to other countries, where liquidated U.S. merchandise is purchased or destroyed in landfills.”
Image credits: Children
Investors were attracted by the company's initial success. Since leaving its beta phase in September 2023, Kidsy managed hit $1 million in annualized revenue in January, just four months later, according to Tandon.
New York-based Impellent Ventures led Kidsy's financing, which also included participation from Hustle Fund, Everywhere VC, The Fund Midwest and Responsfully Ventures. Angel investors also put money into the round, including Initialized partner and Rent the Runway co-founder Jenny Fleiss, DraftKings founder and CEO Jason Robins, Butcherbox founder Mike Salguero, Trucks VC. Managing Partner Reilly Brennan and Kalibrr Co-Founder Sanuk Tandon. They also included “a mix of film financiers,” as well as high-net-worth individuals like Mark and Jane Wilf, the owners of the Minnesota Vikings; Christina Weiss Lurie, co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and co-founder of Spark Capital, Todd Dagres.
Children's clothing: a huge market
Tandon's journey to founding Kidsy began when he founded his own media production company after working as a journalist for Bloomberg TV and ABC News. Through that company, she spent three years running an award-winning documentary feature film on child labor in global supply chains. During that time, he learned about the excess inventory that existed in the US, as well as “all the supply chain problems that retailers face.”
You also learned that liquidation and returns is a $761 billion industry in the US annually.
But it was when Tandon was pregnant with her first child that she decided to be a “smart” consumer and buy baby products on clearance instead of paying full price. That's when she noticed the gap in the market and asked herself, “Where's TJ Maxx or Burlington for all the baby and kids items?”
While there are many clearance and overstock e-commerce companies, few specialize only in children's items, or are actually more focused on a used items market for parents.
While still pregnant, Tandon launched her company.
When she started fundraising as a mother-to-be, Tandon said she was “nervous constantly reading statistics related to how difficult it was for female founders, the dominant 'boys club' that existed within the VC world and also how difficult it is in overall for companies that will raise money in 2024 compared to just two years earlier.”
“I didn't want to be a statistic, so I hid my pregnancy,” Tandon told TechCrunch.
She later decided she would “never do that again” and now tells venture capitalists up front that she is the mother of a baby. Venture capitalists who think that's a problem “aren't the right investors for me,” she said.
Investors, Tandon said, were excited to back a TJ Maxx for kids, noting that the retailer has outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 5 years and that the market for second-hand products for babies and children is It is expected to reach $12.8 billion by 2030..
“We ship these items directly to our warehouse in Nebraska, inspect them, grade them and then sell them, rather than on consignment or through a third-party logistics provider,” he said.
Most of the products are new and unused. About 10% are lightly used, and Kidsy also sells them.
You are already childish According to Tandon, he has tens of thousands of customers. The company earns a “take rate” for each item it sells. Its percentage varies depending on the brands and categories it sells, but on average it is 35%, according to Tandon.
Tandon is aware that there are many competitors selling children's items.
But investors, like David Brown, managing partner at Impellent Ventures, believe Kidsy “is solving several very real problems for parents and infusing innovation into a serious market.”
“Yes, the offering is cheaper than others and has environmental benefits, but it is the way they adapt to the changing needs of parents that has and will continue to set Kidsy apart.”
Kidsy plans to use its new capital for classic hiring growth needs to expand its 12-person team and add more partners. It also plans to incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning into its offering “to increase operational efficiency.”
For now, the startup is focused on the US market, although Tandon believes Kidsy could expand to any country that “has lenient retail returns policies and where brands struggle to manage both their returns and excess inventory.”
