Free Standard

Established in August 2020, Free Standard Co., Ltd. is the brainchild of co-founders Takao Harimoto and Akihiro Nomura. The company's inception was driven by a vision to redefine consumerism for the modern era. Harimoto, the CEO, brings a wealth of e-commerce experience, having previously launched and scaled the fashion platform "SHOPLIST.com" to a significant ¥25 billion annual business at CROOZ, Inc. This journey, complete with its own set of challenges, provided him with profound insights into product-market fit. His partner, Director Akihiro Nomura, cultivated his expertise in the venture ecosystem by supporting numerous startups at the consulting firm Link and Motivation Inc.

Free Standard operates in the recommerce and circular economy space, targeting consumer goods manufacturers and brands. The company's core offering is "Retailor," a Recommerce Operation System designed to be integrated directly into a brand's own e-commerce site. This system empowers companies to establish their own secondary market, moving beyond the traditional linear model of produce, sell, and discard. The business model revolves around providing this technology as a service, enabling clients to capture revenue from the secondary market that is often lost to third-party resellers.

Retailor introduces two primary functions for consumers on a brand's website: an "try-on" option and a "reuse" option. This transforms the purchasing decision from a simple "buy or not" to a more flexible "buy, try, or buy reused." For the brands, this not only opens up new revenue streams and attracts customer segments that may have been hesitant to make a full purchase but also allows them to retain valuable customer data. Furthermore, the system facilitates the return and recollection of items, allowing products to be resold multiple times and maximizing their lifecycle value. This strategic approach aims to solve critical retail challenges like price degradation and the negative impact of unauthorized reselling on new product sales. In July 2022, the company announced it had raised a total of 5.4 billion JPY in a pre-series A funding round to accelerate the development and deployment of Retailor.

Keywords: Recommerce, Circular Economy, EC solutions, Brand EC, Secondary distribution, Retailor, Takao Harimoto, Akihiro Nomura, Try-before-you-buy, Reuse market, Sustainable retail, Fashion tech, E-commerce platform, Direct-to-consumer, Product lifecycle management, Resale market, Inventory solutions, SaaS, Circular commerce, Retail technology