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?

For the past two years most of our community interactions have been virtual – but none were quite like the event we hosted at the end of 2021. We jumped into the Metaverse with our guests to take them around a ‘Truetopia’ of virtual shops, streets and leisure spots as our avatars got together in the virtual auditorium, to discuss realistic opportunities for brands and retailers in our community.

The Metaverse has well and truly landed. All things 'metaverse' have reached fever pitch since Facebook's rebranding to Meta. The October 2021 announcement not only set out a vision for what a fully immersive digital world powered by VR would look like for the company's 2.89 billion monthly active users, but also confirmed a colossal investment in making this a reality – $10 billion this year alone. Since then, everyone's been talking about it.

Not a day seems to go by that a New ‘Quick’ grocery operator doesn't raise funds - launching in a new country or forming a new partnership. In just the past few weeks Berlin-based Gorillas has raised $1bn, and launched a partnership with Tesco.

This October, our team was finally able to meet in person for a few fun-filled days of getting to know each other — and our new brand — a little better.

At True, we believe that business can always be better. It’s why we help people and companies reach for more meaningful relationships, why we break down the barriers to better business in industries, and why we help companies transform how they work and what they do. We’re changing what good business looks like — reshaping it as a force for positive change by showing the world a better way to succeed. True. Business, Reimagined.

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.

Hiring in experts from across the consumer industry supports our mission to reimagine the investment industry. That was one of many reasons for hiring Ella d'Amato, former CCO and CMO of Not on the High Street as True's new Investment MD and CMO.

Global Sports tech and data company Genius Sports has acquired data-driven marketing tool Spirable. It marks the end of our thrilling partnership with the data-driven marketing tool - where we invested first, and worked collaboratively to create the rapid growth that brought about this exciting new chapter.

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.

In the current climate, True’s investment will accelerate fulfilment technology Huboo’s growth by providing access to its retail and consumer ecosystem

After an unprecedented year of stay at home orders, lockdowns, travel bans and store closures what does the UK economy look like in 2021, and what does that mean for the consumer and retail industry? Following a coordinated and 'deliberate' recession, how has the pandemic affected the UK consumer's spending power and will it affect their behaviour in the immediate future? True takes a closer look to see whether it is the consumer that will lead a bounce-back for Britain.

Mental health is now viewed by many as being of equal importance to a person’s physical health, and as such the market for consumer tools, apps and platforms, including Unmind, Headspace and Calm, continues to grow at pace. This shift in behaviour and attitude has supported the growth of workplace mental health platform Unmind, in which True became the business’ first institutional investor in 2017.

Warpaint is a disruptive men’s make-up brand which we were tracking for almost a year before we invested. We'd identified a brilliant management team and a brand that was one step ahead of consumer behavioural shifts. Although lockdowns across the world were changing consumer behaviour we were confident in our investment case. We take a look at why we chose to invest in founder Danny and his brand despite an uncertain time.

Unmind is a workplace mental health platform that empowers employees to take ownership of their own well-being. But it also helps support organisations with their own mental health initiatives through the anonymised data. Nick shares the unconventional story of how he became the CEO & Co-Founder of a startup, as well as some insight into what it's been like to share that journey with investors, including True.

We are deliberately a business which has a different approach and way of doing things than traditional businesses in our industry. From the outset we’ve believed that through our investments we can build better businesses which put people and planet on a level playing field with profit. We're proud of our B Corp Certification and we want more businesses to join us.

True has invested in men's make-up trailblazer WarPaint. The funds will be used to accelerate War Paint’s growth by strengthening the team whilst True's consumer insight will help support Founder Danny and the team deliver the brands ambitious growth plans.

True is extending its partnership with Zwift, as cyclists continue to flock to the platform and virtual fitness platforms grow in popularity. True teamed up with KKR to fundraise the latest $450m minority investment round.