Another, a new retail tech startup tackling one of fashion and retail's messiest problems, just closed a $2.5 million seed round. Founder Corina Marshall has spent over a decade watching retailers hemorrhage money on unsold inventory, and now she's got the capital to fix it. The funding from Anthemis FIL and Westbound signals that VCs are finally paying attention to the off-channel inventory crisis most brands pretend doesn't exist.
Corina Marshall spent 11 years in retail digital marketing before she realized the industry was running on processes that felt stuck in the 2000s. Specifically, how brands managed excess inventory—the products nobody bought—was almost comically antiquated. Retailers dump unsold stock into secondary markets like Nordstrom Rack or bulk resellers, but they're basically flying blind. Nobody has real visibility into what's sitting in which warehouse, what it's actually worth, or when the best window is to move it.
The result? Brands lose money. A lot of it. When products are spread across multiple warehouses with no centralized data, teams end up guessing. Should we discount 30% or 50%? Is the demand window closing or opening? By the time someone makes a decision, the moment's often passed. "Too much time passes between each step of the off-channel inventory funnel, making it difficult to move products to the destinations that are most favorable for the brands and retailers," Marshall told TechCrunch.
That frustration became a business. In 2024, Marshall launched Another, a software platform that connects to a retailer's existing systems—think customer return management tools, inventory tracking, demand forecasting—and creates a single source of truth for excess goods. The secondary market for these items operates on razor-thin timelines and wildly dynamic pricing. For a retailer to actually succeed in moving products through places like Nordstrom Rack, they need real-time data on price elasticity, demand signals, and coordination between warehouses and distribution points. Another automates that entire workflow.
On Tuesday, the company announced it closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Anthemis FIL and Westbound. Marshall connected with her lead investors at an industry event last year, and the timing couldn't be better. She's planning to hire aggressively and accelerate product development. The category already has players like Ghost, a marketplace platform helping brands liquidate excess inventory, but Marshall sees a different angle. Instead of being a marketplace, Another wants to be the operating system—the central nervous system that helps companies make better decisions before they even list items for sale.
The strategic difference matters. Right now, when brands run out of options, they sell to bulk resellers who liquidate items at deep discounts—sometimes 70% or 80% off. That destroys brand value. Marshall wants to intercept that moment earlier. "Another hopes to help companies address excess inventory before brands opt to sell items to bulk resellers," she explained. If retailers have better data about what they're holding, when to move it, and where the best pricing window is, they might avoid that desperate fire sale altogether.
There's also an environmental angle that resonates with modern retailers. Excess inventory doesn't just sit forever—it gets destroyed. Tons of perfectly good clothing, electronics, and goods end up in landfills because liquidation is too slow or inefficient. Marshall frames Another as part of a broader shift toward profitability and sustainability in the same motion. "Consumers gain access to better prices, more optionality, while brands and retailers improve profitability and reduce waste," she said. It's not just about saving retailers money—though that's a $100+ billion market opportunity—it's about fixing a wasteful system.
The funding also reflects something bigger: VCs are starting to care about unsexy logistics problems in retail. Inventory management isn't flashy. There's no AI brand name attached. But it's a real problem with real ROI. Retailers are increasingly desperate for any edge that helps them move goods faster and smarter. Marshall's got the institutional backing, the domain expertise, and now the capital to build something that could reshape how brands think about their unwanted inventory.
Another's seed round is a sign that the inventory crisis in retail is finally getting serious technical attention. Marshall has identified a gap where brands are bleeding money and decided to build the plumbing to fix it. With $2.5M in the bank and investor backing from established retail-tech focused funds, she's positioned to capture a market where almost every major brand is struggling. The next phase is execution—hiring, product refinement, and proving that better data and coordination can actually move the needle on excess inventory costs before other founders recognize the same opportunity.
