Eshita Kabra always knew she wanted to work with Airbnb. When she first came up with the idea for her company By Rotation a few years ago, a fashion-sharing platform, she looked to other gig economy businesses like Airbnb as inspiration.
She launched By Rotation in 2019, transforming it from a side hustle to a bona fide fashion clothing rental business. It now claims over half a million users, including Dame Helen Mirren, Ellie Goulding and Lady Amelia Windsor, a member of the British Royal Family. It raised $3.5 million in funding with backers including Bessemer Ventures and Cornerstone VC, although Kabra was careful with her cap table. She and her team hold more than 70% of the equity in the business.
Now, By Rotation has a partnership with Airbnb to let those who’ve booked an Airbnb receive a complimentary outfit rental from the startup. The partnership will first target those traveling for destination weddings. For a limited time and for those traveling to specified locations, By Rotation will let someone rent an outfit suitable for the wedding.
“I definitely had a pinch-me moment when we signed our partnership agreement,” Kabra said.
People in the U.S. and U.K. are becoming more stressed about the financial costs of attending such weddings, but many are afraid to tell their friends. The phenomenon has become so widespread that New York Magazine’s The Cut dedicated a series of stories to the anxiety, disruption and sometimes joy that being a wedding guest entails.
Right now, By Rotation’s Airbnb partnership is only available to its U.K. customers, but the company hopes to expand to its U.S. customers soon.
The partnership runs from August to December. By Rotation and Airbnb created a list of rentals that qualify in the world’s top 10 wedding destinations, like Italy, North America and Greece.
Users can visit the Airbnb wedding wardrobe site to apply for the By Rotation coupon that will give them a complimentary rental. “By Rotation’s vision is to go global,” Kabra said. “So this is really just scratching the surface by increasing our brand awareness and presence beyond the U.K. and U.S.”
Kabra says that Airbnb actually approached her about a possible partnership, pitching a concept with summer vacations in mind. The two then landed on destination weddings and got to work on making it happen.
By Rotation has grown a lot since TechCrunch last spoke to Kabra in 2022. It has launched partnerships with Bumble and Net-a-Porter, in the U.S. market, and expanded offerings to include more than clothes, like luggage and furniture. She says the company has spent almost nothing on customer acquisition so far this year, yet has seen revenue grow by 250%. According to Kabra, the app has more than 1 million downloads, and with 150,000 designer listings worth $60 million, some customers are making $140,000 renting on the platform.
The app also allows users to rent by location to make last-minute renting easier, and of course, has AI-powered search to help make discovery faster.
“The community-powered platform is now growing completely organically and in a scalable manner, ahead of a new market expansion,” Kabra said. “With the challenging funding market we’ve experienced, my team and I have become masters of our own destiny by executing and operating meticulously while growing and constantly innovating our community-powered marketplace.”
Airbnb is just the latest sign of her company’s success amid consumer appetite for supporting a cleaner environment. In fact, this partnership is a “first of its kind” in the sharing economy space, Kabra said. Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world and up to 85% of textiles in the U.S. are sent to landfills, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. There has been a larger push in fashion — and thus within the tech industry — to address these issues by offering consumers a more sustainable way to shop. One of these ways is by renting and sharing clothing.
The sharing economy, sometimes called the circular economy when referring to consumable items that tend to create trash, is huge. Its potential is worth more than $380 billion, according to Allied Market Research. So Kabra sees such partnerships as a way to encourage consumers to try new ways to shop. “Circularity is the way forward,” Kabra said.