Retraced

Peter Mercurt and his co-founders stumbled onto a market problem while running their own footwear brand. They knew their manufacturers personally and genuinely cared about sustainability, but had no way to communicate this to customers. "They wanted to showcase the sustainability because they really were into the manufacturer. They knew everyone on the spot, but they had no means to communicate it," Peter recalls. This friction became the genesis of Retraced—a platform to bridge the massive gap between fashion companies' sustainability practices and their ability to prove it.

Launched in mid-2018, Retraced started with a simple insight: the fashion industry is fundamentally undigitalized. They began with QR codes on fashion items to communicate sustainability data, but quickly realized the demand was massive and multi-layered. "The problem in the fashion industry is it's not digitalized and very low connectivity here," Peter explains. The team realized they couldn't just build for brands—they needed to serve the entire supply chain (brands, retailers, suppliers, manufacturers) to create real value. This shaped Retraced into a platform serving all tiers simultaneously.

Their first customer was actually their own footwear brand—a classic case of scratching your own itch. From there, growth came primarily through word-of-mouth and the demonstrated need in the market. Within a year, they'd signed 50 brands and suppliers at an average of ~$1,000/month ($800 euros). The early traction was strong enough that by January 2020, they raised a $280K seed round at a $2.3M valuation. However, COVID hit hard: "We started very small, especially in COVID times, no one wanted to invest because back then we had COVID and fashion brands often said, hey, we stay clients because we still want to utilize the platform was a benefit for us. We still get known, but we stopped most of the subscription revenue actually, and it was hard times."

Despite the pandemic headwinds, Retraced's product-market fit signals were incredibly strong. The team achieved near-zero churn—they'd lost only 2 customers out of 50. More impressively, every customer who completed their 3-6 month pilot converted to a paid contract, even if some stretched the pilot beyond 6 months. This persistence paid off: by late 2020, they closed a $1.2M Series A at a $6-7M valuation with a creative structure—half the money upfront, half contingent on hitting an MRR milestone. Peter recalls: "We had a performance condition that product market fit is there. We were proud of our product, but we were not sure if we are there and we didn't want to risk too much." They hit the condition (aiming for $20K+ MRR) by March 2021, proving sustainability demand was real and recurring.

One year after raising their first capital, Retraced has grown from ~$2-3K MRR to $50K MRR—a 16-20x increase. They now serve 50 brands and suppliers with a 24-person team, 14 of them engineers. Long-term customer contracts (some extending to 2 years) validate their position in a compliance-heavy industry where sustainability tracking is becoming non-negotiable. Peter and team are exploring revenue-based financing to minimize future dilution as they scale the platform for an industry-wide shift toward transparency and digital supply chain tracking.