NEW YORK, United States — Childrenswear market place Maisonette has secured $15 million in a Series A funding round led by NEA.

The first funding round will bring total capital raised to $19.3 million. Also joining the round are Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Thrive Capital, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch and Vivi Nevo.

The Brooklyn-based business was founded in March 2017 by US Vogue veterans Sylvana Ward-Durrett and Luisana Mendoza de Roccia, in a bid to provide parents with a one-stop shopping solution in a fragmented childresnwear market. Items span luxury labels and contemporary brands across clothing, accessories, toys, furniture and home décor for newborns through to 12 year olds.

“You have thousands of brands and boutiques on the supply side that, prior to Maisonette, had no platform to reach their customer,” said Ward-Durrett. “There isn’t a centralised solution for parents to shop from, and certainly not a curated one.”

The new funding will be used to expand the business with the creation of a new content vertical, due to launch later this year. There are also plans to grow the team, currently 22, and invest in technology that will help the platform scale.

Taking a page out of Farfetch's playbook, Maisonette operates a marketplace model and does not hold any inventory, instead partnering with over 170 vendors and brands around the world to sell their stock. “We have a waitlist of about 300 boutiques and brands that want to go on the site,” said Mendoza de Roccia.

“Now that we’ve created the foundation, we know that there’s this enormous opportunity out there,” said Ward-Durrett. “We’re the first movers in this space and want to capitalise on timing.” Certainly, the global childresnwear market is booming. According to Euromonitor it was worth $160 billion in 2017, up 6.2 percent from the year previous. It is forecast to growth a further 4.2 percent (CAGR) over the next five years.

Maisonette declined to share figures for the business, but said it surpassed last year’s revenue projection by 40 percent and expects gross merchandise volume to increase six fold over the next year.

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