What Project Cece does

Project Cece is an Amsterdam-based ethical fashion search engine and product aggregator that consolidates offerings from more than 200 ethical fashion stores and 400+ fair trade brands — totaling 40,000+ products — into a single filterable catalogue accessible across 21+ country-specific websites spanning most of Europe and into North America. Founded in 2016 by sisters Melissa and Marcella Wijngaarden and their friend Noor Veenhoven, the company was initially bootstrapped with the founders' own resources and has since raised three modest external rounds: $28,112 from ASIF Ventures (April 2019), $109,429 from Pitchdrive (March 2020), and $120,000 from Techstars (April 2022). The platform's core technology centers on an in-house Impact Analysis team that vets each prospective brand against published sustainability standards before listing, paired with a proprietary five-label sustainability filter system — Eco-Friendly, Fair Trade, Good Cause, Produced in Europe, and Vegan — combined with certificate (GOTS, B Corp, Fair Wear, OEKO-TEX, Bluesign, GRS), material, size, price, and geography filters.

The business operates as a pure discovery layer rather than a transactional webshop: consumers browse and filter on Project Cece and are redirected to partner webshops to complete the purchase. Monetization is entirely affiliate-based — Project Cece earns a commission when a redirected user buys on a partner site — with no consumer subscription, no listing fees, no B2B pricing disclosed, and the only third-party technical integration named being Sendinblue for newsletter automation. There is no mobile app and no public API. The legal entity, Project Cece Holding B.V. (Dutch Chamber of Commerce 73906077), remains founder-controlled with a single Amsterdam headquarters at Oetewalerstraat 83, 1093 ME.

In 2022 the team created Impactbytes, a wholly-owned sister initiative leveraging the same technology, data and development capabilities to make product-level sustainability data more broadly accessible, hinting at a future B2B data-services vector beyond pure consumer affiliate revenue. Headcount sits in the 11–50 band with five named individuals identified (the three co-founders plus a Country Manager Germany and a Developer), and the company is recognized via earned media placements in Bustle, Huffington Post UK, and Innovation Origins, none of which are paying customers.

Name

Project Cece

Legal name

Project Cece Holding B.V.

Website

https://projectcece.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Project Cece is an Amsterdam-based ethical fashion search engine that aggregates 40,000+ products from 200+ ethical stores and 400+ fair trade brands across 21+ country-specific websites, monetizing via affiliate commissions redirected to partner webshops.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Ethical Fashion Marketplace

akta.pro primary industry

Peer-to-Peer (C2C) Resale Marketplaces (CRAFAGAM)

Keywords

• Sustainable fashion
• Ethical clothing
• Fashion search engine
• Fair trade apparel
• Eco-friendly marketplace

Headquarters

HQ city

Amsterdam

HQ country

Netherlands

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Affiliate / referral commissions from partner webshops: Project Cece is not itself a webshop; it lists products from partner stores and earns a commission when users click through to partner sites and make a purchase. The homepage footer explicitly states: "We may earn a commission when you use one of our links to make a purchase." The site also runs an Affiliate Partners program.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Project Cece operates an online ethical fashion search engine and aggregator platform that consolidates more than 40,000 products from 200+ ethical fashion stores and 400+ fair trade brands into a single, filterable catalogue. The platform is available across 21+ country-specific websites (Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, US, etc.) and lets shoppers filter by proprietary sustainability labels, third-party certificates (GOTS, B Corp, Fair Wear, OEKO-TEX), and materials; purchases are completed on partner webshops to which Project Cece redirects users.

Product overview

Project Cece is a single unified ethical fashion search engine platform rather than a platform-plus-modules architecture. The core offering — the ethical fashion search engine — aggregates products from over 200 sustainable clothing stores and 400+ fair trade brands (40,000+ products) into a filterable catalogue segmented into the Women's, Men's, Kids', Home, and Beauty & Care sub-catalogues (e.g., the Women's Sustainable Fashion Catalog with 22,209 items). Built on top of this core, Project Cece provides supporting sub-products: the Sustainability Labels & Filters module (the proprietary five-label system Eco-Friendly, Fair Trade, Good Cause, Produced in Europe, Vegan), the Sustainable Clothing Shops Directory, the Sustainable Clothing Brands Directory, the editorial Project Cece Blog, and the internal Sustainability Standards & Impact Analysis vetting methodology. The 2022-launched Impactbytes sister initiative extends the platform by exposing product-level sustainability data more broadly. Project Cece does not transact sales itself; the actual purchase is performed at the partner webshop where each listed product is sold.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Impactbytes: A sister initiative/brand launched in 2022 by the Project Cece team to make product sustainability data better accessible.

Products and services

• Project Cece Ethical Fashion Search Engine Online search engine and aggregator platform that consolidates offerings from 200+ ethical fashion stores and 400+ fair trade brands, surfacing 40,000+ products in one place across 21+ country-specific websites. The platform is not itself a webshop; purchases are completed at the partner shop where the product is sold.
• Impactbytes Sister data initiative launched by the Project Cece team to make product sustainability data more broadly accessible, complementing the search engine's sustainability impact analyses.
• Sustainable Clothing Shops Directory Directory of 200+ online sustainable clothing stores curated by Project Cece, listing ethical webshops with shipping-location filters and sustainability information per shop.
• Sustainable Clothing Brands Directory Directory of 700+ ethical fashion brands vetted through Project Cece's sustainability impact analyses, displaying sustainability labels and third-party certifications per brand.

Quantifiable outcome

• 40,000+ products from 200+ ethical stores and 400+ fair trade brands aggregated in one place
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Feature4 records

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves9 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Good On You: Good On You is a sustainable fashion brand-rating app that helps consumers discover and compare ethical brands — directly comparable to Project Cece's curation-and-discovery model for ethical/sustainable fashion, although primarily brand-level ratings rather than product-level aggregation.
• Eco-Stylist: Eco-Stylist is a UK-based ethical and sustainable fashion directory and review platform that vets brands on sustainability and ethics — a direct comparable in the European sustainable-fashion discovery category.
• DoneGood: DoneGood is a search engine and browser extension for sustainable and ethical brands, very closely analogous to Project Cece's aggregator/search model across multiple product categories including fashion, with a US-centric footprint.
• EarthHero: EarthHero is an online marketplace aggregating sustainable everyday goods (including apparel) that vets brands against environmental and social criteria — a comparable curated sustainable-goods discovery destination with a broader product scope than Project Cece.
• The Good Trade: The Good Trade is a sustainable living and ethical fashion digital media and marketplace brand, featuring vetted brand directories and editorial content — comparable to Project Cece's combined discovery + blog + curated-shopping positioning.
• Wearwell: Wearwell is a curated online marketplace for sustainable clothing and accessories, vetting brands on ethical and environmental criteria — competing with Project Cece for the same sustainability-minded consumer, but operating a transacting storefront rather than an aggregator.
• Olivela: Olivela is an online retailer curating sustainable and ethically-produced fashion and accessories, donating a portion of proceeds to charitable causes — overlaps with Project Cece's curated-discovery mission, though operating a transacting storefront rather than an aggregator.

Broad incumbents

• Reformation: Reformation is a leading sustainable-fashion incumbent brand with its own strong sustainability disclosures and traceability infrastructure — competes for the same end consumer and validates the ethical-fashion category, but as a single brand rather than an aggregator.
• Vestiaire Collective: Vestiaire Collective is a large global resale marketplace for premium and luxury fashion, addressing sustainability through circularity — a much larger incumbent in the sustainable-fashion commerce space that competes for the same values-driven shopper.

Others

• B Lab (B Corporation): B Lab administers the B Corp certification, a major sustainability credential referenced in Project Cece's certificate filters — an adjacent enabling organization whose data and certification ecosystem underpins the sustainability claims aggregated by Project Cece.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Project_Cece
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/project-cece

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Project Cece