Drelife, the "second life" of fashion financed by Barça and Ricky Rubio
The company founded by former handball player Alberto 'Beto' Miralles raises a round of 800,000 euros with the support of various names from sports and retail
BarcelonaThe clothing and merchandise business has become one of the central levers of the sports economy. FC Barcelona knows this well, as it has in the Barça Licensing and Merchandising (BLM) brand one of the jewels in the entity's economic crown, with revenues last season that will break 200 million euros. So much so that fashion retail brands, both sports and general consumer, seek to control the entire market: the primary one, which operates through official or licensed stores; but also the secondary one, now concentrated on external platforms such as Wallapop, dedicated to second-hand items and products, or those outside the usual channels. It is in this effort that Drelife emerges, a start-up founded and led by former professional handball player Alberto Miralles, dedicated to building and operating "second life" channels for clothing brands that wish to access these segments.
Barça itself already saw Drelife's potential at the end of April, when it entered the company as an investor and strategic partner through Barça Innovation Hub, the club's vehicle dedicated to financing innovative projects. Thus, the emerging company began tasks at the beginning of May to "develop the first official second life channel for Barça merchandise". In other words, the club will have its own channel for buying and selling official second-hand products, without depending on external platforms.
Barça's entry into Drelife has been just one of the bets that the sports and fashion world have made on the company. This Wednesday, in fact, the Barcelona-based start-up announced the closing of an investment round of 800,000 euros with several other highly relevant athletic names: in addition to the Catalan club, star of Joventut de Badalona, Ricky Rubio, and professional golfer Rafa Cabrera Bello have joined the investment. The investor group also includes profiles specialized in retail, such as Manel Jiménez, operations director of the Tendam group – the company behind Cortefiel, Springfield or Women's Secret, among other brands –; or the founder of STC Retail Solutions, Rafa Alegre.
A "turning point" in commerce
According to Miralles, the fashion retail sector "is at an inflection point, where the second life of the product ceases to be an isolated initiative to become a structural layer of the business". In this regard, Drelife offers brands "comprehensive management of the entire product lifecycle".
In this way, companies that opt for this solution maintain "total control" over the secondary market for their products, and generate "new recurring revenue and strategic data" from customers who already existed, but who accessed the product through external channels.
The figures, according to the company itself, indicate a clear path: the solutions developed by Drelife generate "up to 28% additional revenue" for the brands that work with them; and allow "up to 15% optimization of inventory". The emerging company aims to "transform the structural change" that the second life of clothing and merchandise entails into "a real, scalable, and measurable business opportunity".
