After weathering the pandemic’s worst, Untuckit nabbed a $30 million vote of confidence in its business model and future.
The 10-year-old shirting startup will use a $30 million senior secured term loan to rework its debt obligations, a move that co-founding CEO Aaron Sanandres said will “better position Untuckit to serve our loyal customers as they return to work and socializing outside the home.”
Second Avenue Capital Partners, which provided the loan, developed a “bespoke solution” that matched the “complexity of our situation,” Sanandres continued, adding that the lender to retail and consumer businesses “delivered on their promises and they did so on an extremely tight timeline.”
Chris O’Conner, president of Second Avenue, believes Untuckit is poised to succeed in office settings and workplaces that “in general have increasingly become more casual,” a trend that the executive says is “skyrocketing.”
“Untuckit is a brand our team is familiar with because we’re all customers,” O’Conner added, highlighting opportunities for the label’s “meteoric growth” in a newly “casual/dress dynamic.”
After establishing its name in men’s wear, Untuckit soon expand to include women’s styles similarly based on the premise that shirts can be worn untucked. The startup firm was also among the first of the digital native brands to branch out into brick-and-mortar, and partnered with NewStore in 2019 to translate its digital persona to the store experience. Today, Untuckit’s clicks-to-bricks strategy spans 86 retail locations in addition to e-commerce, where consumers can pay for purchases in installments after the company partnered with buy now, pay later platform Sezzle last year.
Untuckit raised $30 million from Silicon Valley venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2017, and received loans of $5 million and $10 million under the Paycheck Protection Program.