A Perfect Fit for True&Co?

True&Co, an online intimates retailer has secured $2 million in first round funding from top investors, including First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, Aileen Lee, Softbank Capital and former LinkedIn executive Ellen Levy. The company has also just unveiled a service to fit women into the perfect bra online with no measuring tape.

PRESS RELEASE

Two women vented their frustrations about bra shopping over coffee and then set out to redesign bra shopping in the way they would want to shop.

Today True&Co, an online intimates retailer, announces a service to fit women into the perfect bra online with no measuring tape. True&Co applies technology to determine which bras out of the hundreds of styles sold on their website are the best fit for each woman’s unique body shape.

“The busy, fashionable, always-online woman told us she wanted a new way to access great styles, great value and exceptional, personalized service. Starting today, we are delivering the best parts of the in-store experience – the expert counsel of a bra fitter and the ability to try on bras before she buys – to her doorstep,” said Michelle Lam, CEO and co-founder of True&Co. “This is just the beginning. Over the next year, we will continue to reinvent the way women shop, building an online destination for everything underneath the dress.”

After taking a two-minute online fit quiz at True&Co’s website, women browse a bra shop specifically created for them. They will see only the styles and sizes that are the best for them from more than 20 national and boutique brands, including Calvin Klein and Natori. Customers can then select five bras to try at home, paying only for the bras they want to keep and returning the rest, for free. True&Co tracks each customer’s specific purchasing history to recommend only the best items relevant to her.

“We built a personal shopping experience that is fun and easy for the customer. Behind the scenes, we baked the same unwritten rules that expert bra fitters use into code. A complex system, consisting of our algorithms, translation engine and Amazon-like recommendation system, creates more than 2,000 variations of body type that can be matched to our inventory.” said Aarthi Ramamurthy, head of product and co-founder of True&Co. “As a result, customers report that three out of the five styles in their bra box fit well.”

True&Co also announced today that it has received $2 million in its first round of funding from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, Aileen Lee, Softbank Capital and former LinkedIn executive Ellen Levy.

“True&Co is part of an exciting new wave of e-commerce companies bringing great products and a delightful customer experience to the modern consumer,” said Aileen Lee, an investor in True&Co.from her new seed fund. “They have re-imagined the intimates shopping experience for the way women want to shop.”

“The team is applying technology in an unexpected way to solve a hard retail problem, leveraging algorithms and data that even the leading brands don’t have access to,” said Josh Kopelman, a managing partner at First Round Capital. “True&Co has identified a huge pain point in the $12B intimate apparel industry.”

True&Co will demo its online bra shopping service on stage at the D10 conference in Rancho Pales Verdes, California, on May 30, 2012.

About True&Co

True&Co has reinvented the way women buy intimates. By taking a fit-based approach to online bra retail, we’re replacing the uncomfortable fitting room experience with an online two-minute fit quiz and home try-on. Our algorithms then recommend and sell only the styles and the sizes that fit a woman’s specific body shape.