Estonian multi-category B2C subscription service provider, Fairown, secured a €5.7 million investment to set the stage for a large-scale expansion in Germany.

Fairown has already expanded across Europe, offering its unique subscription service in nine countries. Following the success in the Baltics, Nordics, and Poland, securing the funding will enable them to develop and scale the product and grow the customer base in Germany.

“Our product subscription service allows merchants to scale and rapidly serve large markets. With the strong backing from our investors, our mission is to make its benefits available to more and more merchants and consumers in Germany,” said Hendrik Roosna, CEO and Founder at Fairown.

The funding round was led by Bonventure, the first impact fund in the German-speaking countries, and supported by existing investors. These include neosfer, the early-stage investor and innovation unit of the Commerzbank Group, STIHL Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of STIHL, and Gateway Ventures.

Setting the stage for expansion in Germany 

Fairown offers a product-as-a-service platform. Fairown buys the consumer’s desired product from the merchant, the consumer gets the product for himself, for which he pays a fixed amount every month until the end of the agreed period. At the end of the usage period, the product is returned to Fairown, and the start-up company directs the product to the manufacturer for reuse or to the following consumer.

Fairown has just launched product subscription in the German household appliances market with BSH BlueMovement, representing the world-renowned brand Bosch. The subscription service also has enormous strategic importance for tech giants like Apple. Hence, one of Fairown’s early customers in Germany is Apple Premium Reseller (APR) FundK.

“I’m happy to welcome FundK to our family of Apple Premium Resellers (APR) that value the circular economy. We already partner with APRs in the Baltics, Norway, and Poland. High interest towards an easily scalable and sustainable solution, and support from our financing partners in Germany, Commerzbank and Targobank, has proved that there’s a market gap for this solution,” said Roosna.

“The decisive advantage of the cooperation with Fairown is additional customer loyalty for our business. It’s increasingly important to identify customer groups whose behaviour is not yet reflected in the purchasing process. These are people who like to use the latest Apple products for 1-2 years, and upgrade to new ones. The Clever Rate subscription program allows them to do exactly that, affordably,” added Wolfgang Papé, General Manager at FundK.

Growing customer base across Europe

Premium brands and retailers can offer Fairown’s B2C subscription service to make their products more affordable, provide consumers with a flexible way of ownership, and steer consumption to a sustainable, circular model. Main advantages of subscription compared to rental are that merchants own their customer relationship and consumers get a much lower monthly cost.

Fairown’s subscription service has more than 100,000 consumers across Europe. For merchants, it brings recurring sales, increased customer loyalty, and lower environmental impact across the board, from consumer electronics to household appliances, garden tools, and micromobility.

The service also endorses circularity and product reuse, solving a burning problem, especially in the German market. The circular material use rate in Germany succumbs to many EU countries, leveling at just 13%, while climbing to 27% in the Netherlands.

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