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XCan This Kids’ Clothing Startup Help Tackle Fashion’s Sustainability Crisis?
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.

Rent-a-Romper, a kids clothing startup that launched to make "life easier for parents while reducing the burden of clothing on the planet," just made its first acquisition and raised a $150,000 angel round. The L.A.-based company plans to raise as much as $1.7 million more in the coming months, but can it make good on its goal of building "a more sustainable future for children's fashion?"
The five-person startup rents clothing to parents of fast-growing children, with the aim of cutting down both the time it takes to shop for apparel and the negative impact that disposable fashion has on the planet. Currently, Rent-a-Romper offers subscriptions that range from $9 to $63 per month.
The business recently snapped up San Francisco kids' clothing retailer ARLi in a cash and equity deal, enabling it to expand its inventory and — ideally — create a more environmentally friendly future for kids fashion.
Fashion's Role In Carbon Emissions
The fashion business is responsible for around 10% of global carbon emissions and is "widely believed to be the second most polluting industry in the world," according to the United Nations. Some have suggested clothing rental companies could be a sustainable alternative to fast fashion and a solution to fashion's disposability problem.
One recent study study — published in Finnish scientific journal Environmental Research Letters — is skeptical. It found that rentals can actually be worse for the planet, in part because of the high emissions generated by transportation and dry cleaning. The study's brutal takeaway: renting clothes can be "less green than throwing them away." Some businesses have contested that conclusion.
"Our focus, right now at the beginning, is on two key areas. The first one is extending the life of clothing as long as we possibly can," says founder and CEO Lauren Gregor. "And the second one is around diverting waste from landfills."
Rent-a-Romper tracks when clothing leaves its inventory and built its model anticipating that items could be rented out two or three times before they need to be retired. That turned out to be a conservative estimate, according to Gregor.
"We have items in our inventory that have now gone out to their sixth family and still have life in them," she says.] "And we're tracking which brands are more durable. We have over 150 brands in our inventory, so we're just gathering a ton of data."
To date, the company hasn't sent any of its clothes to landfills. Gregor pointed to partnerships the company has formed in Los Angeles to recycle textiles and donate clothes with life left in them. One such partner is South Gate-based Fybraa.
Rent-a-Romper also doesn't dry clean.
"We wash in cold water in high efficiency washing machines," says Gregor. And when items are stained, "We have a process where we'll soak it in natural, plant-based detergents and then we get it in the sun. Good thing about being in Southern California is we can do that, and it's one of the best ways to sanitize naturally."
But transportation, another culprit laid out in the study, is core to its business — and Rent-a-Romper's biggest expense.
"So we're really trying to be as creative as we can about bringing that cost down," says Gregor, who noted the company uses compostable mailers and recycled packaging.
Down the line, Gregor aims to open up regional centers to cut costs, speed up deliveries and reduce shipping emissions.
"We're small. We're a startup. So we're doing what we can, but [we are] very conscious about trying to make continuous improvements in those areas."
Providing Parents Another Option
Dr. Greys Sošić of the University of Southern California, whose research includes supply chain sustainability, wrote in an email to dot.LA that "renting kid's clothes could actually be beneficial for the environment" — with the caveat that she's not reviewed any hard data on Rent-a-Romper.
"I assume that moms, having other things to worry about, would not want to exchange kids' clothes every week or every two weeks," she said, "which are some of the 'fashion' rental terms, and would prefer to keep them for at least a month, or until their kid outgrows them. This reduces the biggest negative impact of apparel rental, which comes from clothes shipping and cleaning."
Without the option to rent, Sošić writes, "moms have to either regularly buy new clothes and dispose of the items that their kids have outgrown" or "rely on their personal network of friends and relatives who might have had kids before them and have some apparel that their kids cannot use anymore."
Rent-a-Romper plans to introduce new products this fall, expanding into seasonal and special occasion attire as well as one-time rentals. The startup may also grow its inventory to include apparel for older kids later on.
"We're really focusing on customer acquisition and perfecting our delivery as we bring ARLi in," says Gregor. "As we go out to raise this next round, the key things that we're going to be focusing on are our customer technology — as a circular business with massive variety in our inventory, technology is something that will be one of those levers that really help us scale."
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
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LA Tech ‘Moves’: Adtech Firm OpenX Lures New SVP, Getlabs and DISQO Tap New VPs
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
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Advertising technology company OpenX Technologies appointed Geoff Wolinetz as senior vice president of demand platforms. Wolinetz was most recently senior vice president of growth at Chalice Custom Algorithms.
Remote health care infrastructure provider Getlabs hired Jaime LaFontaine as its vice president of business development. L.A.-based LaFontaine was previously director of business development for Alto Pharmacy.
Customer experience platform DISQO tapped Andrew Duke as its vice president of product, consumer applications. Duke previously served as Oracle’s senior director of strategy and product.
Media company Wheelhouse DNA named Michael Senzer as senior manager of Additive Creative, its newly launched digital talent management division. Senzer was previously vice president of business development at TalentX Entertainment.
Fintech lending platform Camino Financial hired Dana Rainford as vice president of people and talent. Rainford previously served as head of human resources at Westwood Financial.
Kourtney Day returned to entertainment company Jim Henson’s Creature Shop as senior director of business development. Day mostly recently served as business development manager for themed entertainment at Solomon Group.
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
California Debates Data Privacy as SCOTUS Allows Abortion Bans
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
The United States Supreme Court called a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks constitutional on Friday, overturning the country’s founding abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court also upheld that there cannot be any restriction on how far into a pregnancy abortion can be banned.
When Politico first broke the news months before SCOTUS’s final ruling, a slew of bills entered Congress to protect data privacy and prevent the sale of data, which can be triangulated to see if a person has had an abortion or if they are seeking an abortion and have historically been used by antiabortion individuals who would collect this information during their free time.
Democratic lawmakers led by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo called on Google to stop collecting location data. The chair of the Federal Trade Commission has long voiced plans for the agency to prevent data collection. A week after the news, California Assembly passed A.B. 2091, a law that would prevent insurance companies and medical providers from sharing information in abortion-related cases (the state Senate is scheduled to deliberate on it in five days).
These scattered bills attempt to do what health privacy laws do not. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was established in 1996 when the Internet was still young and most people carried flip phones. The act declared health institutions were not allowed to share or disclose patients’ health information. Google, Apple and a slew of fertility and health apps are not covered under HIPAA, and fertility app data can be subpoenaed by law enforcement.
California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (or CMIA), goes further than HIPAA by encompassing apps that store medical information under the broader umbrella of health institutions that include insurance companies and medical providers. And several how-tos on protecting data privacy during Roe v. Wade have been published in the hours of the announcement.
But reproductive rights organizations say data privacy alone cannot fix the problem. According to reproductive health policy think tank Guttmacher Institute, the closest state with abortion access to 1.3 million out-of-state women of reproductive age is California. One report from the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy estimates as many as 9,400 people will travel to Los Angeles County every year to get abortions, and that number will grow as more states criminalize abortions.
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
This Week in ‘Raises’: Miracle Miles Lands $100M, Fintech Startup Tapcheck Hauls $20M
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
In this week’s edition of “Raises”: An L.A.-based footwear company closed $100 million to boost its expansion into the global market, while there were Series A raises for local fintech, biotech and space startups.
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Venture Capital
Miracle Miles Group, an L.A.-based footwear company, raised a $100 million Series A funding round co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital China.
Deno, a San Diego-based software development startup, raised a $21 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital.
Tapcheck, an L.A.-based financial wellness startup that helps workers access their paycheck before payday, raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by PeakSpan Capital.
Gemelli Biotech, an L.A.- and Raleigh, N.C.-based biotech startup focused on gastrointestinal diseases, raised a $19 million Series A financing round led by Blue Ox Healthcare Partners.
Epsilon3, an L.A.-based space operations software startup, raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Lux Capital.
Global Premier Fertility, an Irvine-based fertility company, raised an $11 million Series C funding round led by Triangle Capital Corporation.
Vamstar, an L.A.- and London-based medical supply chain platform, raised a $9.5 million Series A funding round co-led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and Dutch Founders Fund.
System 9, an L.A.-based digital asset market-making firm focused on the crypto altcoin market, raised a $5.7 million Series A funding round led by Capital6 Eagle.
Myria, an L.A.-based online marketplace of luxury goods and services, raised a $4.3 million seed round from Y Combinator, Backend Capital, Cathexis Ventures and other angel investors.
Binarly, an L.A.-based firmware cybersecurity company, raised a $3.6 million seed round from WestWave Capital and Acrobator Ventures.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).
- Vamstar Raises $9.5M For Its Medical Supply Chain Platform - dot.LA ›
- MaC Venture Capital Eyes $200 Million For Its Second Fund - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Venture Capital News - dot.LA ›
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.