Stories about investment

Funding infusion accelerates commercial deployments and SeeChange's vision for a smarter, safer retail future.

Following our recent event, there was a lot of interest around how our portfolio company, Sneak, had built such an engaged community. Our Head of Marketing, Danielle Le Toullec, sat down with Lauren Carroll, Head of Comms at Sneak to delve deeper into their community development and growth off the back of one of the brand’s biggest ever campaigns. The Halloween-themed drop - Satanic Cult - drove enormous community engagement, leading to a UK sellout in just 18 hours & global sellout in 1 week.

You may have noticed Hush has changed a little this month – a new logo, new look and an exciting new collection. Our Head of Marketing, Danielle Le Toullec caught up with Hush's Chief Creative Officer, Melissa Dick to discuss the brand refresh and her inspiration for the new collection, ‘A Moment in Hush’.

Ahead of the UCI Gravel World Championships in October in Veneto, Ribble, launches its new Stone Collection Gravel Bikes which will debut at the competition by four Ribble Collective Riders. One of these riders is Maddy Nutt who shares her journey from working in finance to the podiuming at the Earth Series and being selected for team GB for the Gravel Worlds.

Jitty, backed by former Deliveroo employees, aims to revolutionize home buying with its comprehensive suite of AI-powered tools. True invests in Jitty out of its VC fund.

We are pleased to announce our strategic investment in Apparel Brands Limited (ABL), a UK-headquartered business specialising in the sourcing, design and distribution of Branded apparel and accessories to third parties and through its network of directly operated websites, as well as the licensing and development of branded apparel through its intellectual property portfolio.

Our VC team have been immersed in the vibrant European start-up and VC ecosystem, attending three major conferences over the past couple of weeks. While Mike represented us at SuperVenture in Berlin, Joe and Michanne were actively involved in London Tech Week (LTW) and VivaTech in Paris.

The Cotswold Company has revamped its senior management team with the appointments of Jim Sharp as chairman and Matt Pollington as chief marketing officer.

Last year, over 150,000 new all-women-led companies were founded – more than ever before - but statistics show that over 95% of early-stage funding goes to all-male-founded start-ups. So how do you get ahead of the game as a female founder? Here are some top tips from someone who has done it before.

Long-term strategic thinking is required to drive progress for the country and retail, argues Matt Truman

Health is getting a full tech glow-up and at True we're keenly watching this consumer Health Tech transformation. Take a look at the six trends we're seeing in this space...

There are 37 large-scale designer outlets in the UK, which saw an estimated 111 million visitors in 2021. Outlets are growing at ten times the rate of traditional high street retail, so could this be the solution to our overstock problems?

One of the most challenging times to raise funding is in the beginning, but luckily, there are many funding options available to early-stage startups. The current economic climate has intensified difficulties, and this is set to continue. But, raising from a VC isn't the only option, so we've laid out some other routes to consider.

What happens when 4,600 start-up founders and 2,600 investors, representing $1 trillion in assets under management, spend two days in Helsinki? We went to Slush 2022 to find out – read on to learn the top trends in tech and our key takeaways on the state of venture funding.

With the FIFA World Cup coinciding with the busiest shopping period of the year, as well as a challenging economic forecast, this is unchartered territory. But there are opportunities for all retailers to get involved in the hype, community and revenue that sporting events bring.  

Entrepreneurship has never been easy, and with the backdrop of a tough economic landscape plus a year on year slowdown of venture funding, the challenges for entrepreneurs can mount up. So, what's the best way to think about runway and funding when the venture capital markets are tough? Read on to find out.

At a time of massive economic upheaval, history brings a sense of perspective, believes True co-founder and executive chair Matt Truman

The fiscal stimulus in response to Covid lowered the cost of capital, flooding business models that didn’t deserve funding with valuations that were, at times, eye-watering. The upshot of excess stimulus is the inflation every business is now faced with, says True co-founder Matt Truman.

With new product lines, store space and international expansion on the horizon it's an exciting time for True to be participating in another funding round for ethically-produced tablewear brand Fable.

With rising inflation rates and a downturn in consumer confidence what is the lay of the land for retail this year? And what - if any - are the investment opportunities out there?

It may sound counterintuitive in an unpredictable trading environment but companies need to invest and innovate, argues True executive chair and founder Matt Truman.

As we sit at the beginning of December, there are many conflicting industry drivers for retail, which when combined lead to significant ambiguity moving into 2022.

True has completed the first close for its new seed stage fund, which covers pre-seed to Series A. We’ll be investing up to £5m in exciting, innovative brands that are stretching the possibilities of digital and changing the retail and consumer landscape.

True has acquired a majority stake in D2C zero sugar, energy drink business Sneak to help supercharge international expansion, build out Sneak’s distribution channels and support the business as it continues to disrupt the traditional energy drink market with its creative approach to marketing and ecommerce.

Brawn, the leading platform for strength athletes, has secured early stage investment from True along with a group of strategic private investors, including Nick Mitchell of Ultimate Performance, the leading global personal training brand.