Thevolte

The Volte is an Australian online marketplace for designer fashion rental, operating at thevolte.com. It connects owners of designer clothing ("lenders") with consumers who want to hire garments for weddings, formal and black-tie events, award nights, cocktail parties and other occasions. The company positions itself as both a rental marketplace and a search engine for designer rentals in Australia, aggregating supply from individual wardrobes as well as smaller bricks-and-mortar rental boutiques that previously had little online presence.

The catalogue spans dresses, clothing and accessories from Australian and international labels including Zimmermann, Alemais, Rebecca Vallance, Aje, Rachel Gilbert, Rat & Boa, Anna Quan, Arcina Ori, Camilla and Marc, Odd Muse, Ronny Kobo, Sir the Label, Acler, Elliatt and House of CB. Listings are organised into curated collections (new arrivals, seasonal edits, wedding guest, luxury designers) and by city, with dedicated dress-hire pages for Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast. Typical rental prices shown on the site run from roughly $99 to $280 against recommended retail prices of $250 to $1,995; press coverage describes hires ranging from $20 to $2,000.

The business is framed around the sharing economy and circular fashion, allowing wardrobe owners to earn passive income from garments they already own while giving renters access to designer pieces without purchase.

Founding story

Press coverage describes The Volte as founded in 2017 by four friends: Kym Atkins, Bernadette Olivier, Genevieve Hohnen and Jade Hirniak; a company profile lists a June 2016 founding date. The founding team's backgrounds include corporate law in financial services and mining (Atkins, previously in London, Melbourne and Perth, who had earlier founded and exited a mining medical services company; Olivier, previously at TPG-Axon Capital, Shaw Stockbroking and Western Power) and academia and online learning administration at Murdoch and Edith Cowan Universities (Hohnen).

Business model

The Volte operates an asset-light peer-to-peer marketplace: it does not own inventory, instead connecting individual wardrobe owners and rental boutiques (lenders) with borrowers. Lenders create profiles, list garments with photos, descriptions and rental prices, and ship items directly to renters, receiving payment after each completed hire. The company takes a 20% fee on every rental or purchase transacted on the platform and states it has a number of additional revenue streams.

Commission-based: a 20% fee on each rental or purchase completed through the marketplace, plus additional revenue streams cited by the company.

Traction

By the time of its 2019 seed round the platform reported 400% revenue growth in 2018, more than 100,000 active users per month, over 15,000 listings and more than $10 million in retail value of listed inventory. A subsequent company profile cites over 23,000 listings valued at more than $20 million, approximately $500K in trailing-twelve-month revenue and seven employees.