)
The world's largest peer-to-peer designer dress-sharing platform has been plucked out of administration as the Queensland-based Sarai family takes control of Designerex, a Sydney-based business founded in 2016 by Kirsten Kore and Costa Koulis.
Designerex appointed administrators in March, claiming the decision was triggered by a legal dispute with technology provider PixelForce, whose founder Hinney Lo contested the implication that the matter had anything to do with the company's financial difficulties.
Liam Bailey, the company's administrator from O’Brien Palmer, chose for Designerex to resume trading in April amidst "significant interest from investors and potential purchasers".
A spokesperson for the Sarai family says the deal involved the purchase of all assets, including the Designerex brand and trademarks, and will continue trading as such.
"The deal is a cash deal and values subject to confidentiality with the administrators, although we can state that over $250,000 of dress suppliers debt is to be paid in full," the spokesperson says.
"Although we are expecting that only a small percentage of dress suppliers will participate in the administration process out of the 650-plus owed monies, the Sarai family have committed to clear all remaining debt once the administration process has concluded in August."
The family describes its purchase as a milestone that "marks the relaunch of an iconic Australian brand under new leadership with a strong focus on customer service excellence".
There is very little public information about the Sarai family, which in a release following the deal noted it had been involved in professional services startup Infrastructure Nation, which in 2021 was acquired by Five V Capital-owned APP Corporation Pty Ltd (now the APP Group), where until recently Nick Sarai was the executive general manager for transport projects.
The spokesperson notes that Nick Sarai left APP Group last month.
The family claims to have "supported business growth initiatives providing positive social impact for many years", including a recent venture scaling a European events firm that has so far raised more than $50 million for cancer research.
"They are also involved in boards and other business activities which they are unable to disclose at this time," the spokesperson adds.
The Designerex platform allows women to list and rent their designer dresses to other women, providing them with a side hustle for underutilised fashion that is sitting in their wardrobes, generating "millions of dollars" for lenders of more than 50,000 garments globally.
This side effect of this is also to reduce the environmental toll of fast fashion, which is responsible for approximately 10 per cent of global carbon emissions and 85 per cent of textile waste.
"Designerex was the first peer-to-peer luxury dress-sharing platform to scale in Australia, loved by its lender community and renters alike," says Daisy Sarai.
"Thousands of women earn income from their dresses on the platform, with some generating tens of thousands of dollars annually.
"We are fully committed to settling all outstanding debts to lenders as quickly as possible and relaunching with the exceptional service Designerex was known for."
Sarai says that conversations with the platform's dress lenders during due diligence were "not easy" as they had been impacted by delayed payments
"We are thrilled that payments will be resolved via this acquisition and those customers can once again benefit from this leading fashion technology."
The Designerex website currently lists 9,468 lenders on the platform, with dresses from 1,635 designer brands.
)
