We’re thrilled to feedback on a busy month for PACP, with a fabulous in-person event co-hosted at Brityard’s Regent Street venue and our online pitch event highlighting Female Founders Changing The Game For Consumers.

We’re incredibly proud to be working with these talented female entrepreneurs and their innovative businesses. Below, we highlight all the founders and investment opportunities featured this month.

Our track record with investment success for female founders bucks the ongoing trend around investment in female entrepreneurs; only last week, the government-backed Invest in Women Taskforce revealed that out of a total £8 billion equity investment in the first half of the year, only £145 million was given to female founders. This equates to just 1.8% of private equity investments and down from the equally dismal 2.5% for all of last year.

We continue to be frustrated by this data, particularly as we see huge talent, innovation and entrepreneurship with our female founder clients and our own success in securing funding for female founders; in 2023, over 40% of our funding secured for clients related to female-led businesses.

PACP Co-Hosts Event With Brityard

A Disruptive Retail & Hospitality Venue For The Best Of British Brands and Talent

Congratulations to Brityard founders Lara Gibson-Chant and Rob Gibson-Chant, and PACP partner Sharon O’Connor, for hosting our event at their flagship Regent Street venue last week.

As a pioneering retail concept, Brityard is challenging the norm with its membership based retail model that brings British brands together.

It was a breath of fresh air to co-host this event in person, with a lively mix of esteemed retailers, investors, creatives and founders, all enjoying the delights of Brityard’s best of breed British brands.

Grape and Fig and Gusbourne are amongst the many brands currently based on site at this dynamic shared environment that combines retail and event space.

Lara and Rob have created Brityard to bring micro-communities together, where everything you see, hear, touch, taste, smell and experience comes from the best homegrown talent across the UK.

After just 6 months of trading, the current site is profitable and already exceeding £1million ARR, and their unique model is multi-faceted with revenue coming from recurring B2B membership fees, sales commission and events.

With High Streets crying out for something new, immersive and exciting, Brityard’s entrepreneurial founders have proved their innovative concept and have plans to take this to other sites in the UK and internationally, being well placed to build the business into a truly disruptive global player.

For more details and to request Brityard’s investor deck, please contact sharon@pa-capitalpartners.com

September Online Pitch Event Round Up

We were delighted that Lilac Watt, a consumer investor at Venrex, joined us to give her insights into the current early-stage investment market, focussing on our theme of Female Founders Changing The Game For Consumers.

Lilac commented that it’s more important than ever to have a great product that people return to again and again, and highlighted the importance of being compelling to investors to get rounds over the line.

She explained that Venrex have 2 strong partnerships with the British Fashion Council and British Beauty Council, and all are very excited about what the new, next best thing will be in these sectors, with diversity, inclusion, impact and sustainability all highlighted as being inportant to consumers.

Many thanks to Lilac for her valuable input on discussions during our event. It was also great to hear that Venrex is also bucking the trend in that over 40% of their portfolio of over 200 companies have a female founder or co-founder.

Below are details about the 2 pitching businesses and the PACP contact to request investor decks and more information, including to arrange to meet with the founders.

“Studio 10”

A Grown-Up Make-Up Line Changing The Face Of Aging In The Beauty Sector

• Founder: Grace Foder
• Stage: Early-Growth
• Raise: £500k

Visionary founder, Grace Foder, spotted a big gap in the market and launched Studio 10 – an innovative make-up range that meets the unique requirement of mature skin.

Since launch, the business has grown rapidly and quickly gained media attention and outstanding reviews for its truly unique community driven brand, with real purpose and mission, empowering women to look and feel their most beautiful and confident.

The business has excellent current retention and acquisition metrics, with a product portfolio that hits the spot with women over 35, who are the biggest and fastest growth sector in beauty.

The market potential is significant: Beauty Matter, the global beauty industry specialist organisation, has referred to mature make-up as being “beauty’s next big frontier”.

Already at £2.0 million ARR and at 90% growth, Grace and her experienced, expert team is now raising £500k to turbocharge scaling, including into international territories.

For more info and to request an investor deck, please contact greg@pa-capitalpartners.com

“Peachaus”

A Purpose-Led Lifestyle Brand Setting A New Precedent For Fashion & Wellness

• Founder: Gillian Ridley Whittle
• Stage: Early-Growth
• Raise: £1m

Vastly experienced founder, Gillian Riddley Whittle, created Peachaus with an inspiring vision to unite expert craftsmanship, innovation and sustainable production processes.

A unique lifestyle brand with its own products that are beautiful, comfortable and sustainable, using ethical sourcing and materials and currently incorporating underwear, sleep and lounge wear, activewear and swimwear.

It’s established growing and diversified sales channels, including e-commerce, retail, wholesale (Fenwick and Next) and B2B partnerships (Nordstrom and Bloomingdales).

Already achieving ARR of £750k, it’s incredibly well-placed to scale significantly through its expanding multi-channel routes to market on a global scale.

Gillian is incredibly experienced in the fashion and beauty sector, including senior roles leading M&S lingerie and Fashion Director at Top Shop, and has already securing funding from industry experts.

In the current round, the team are now seeking £1m to support the next level of growth.

For more information and to request an investor deck, please contact greg@pa-capitalpartners.com