Thread receives 22 million pounds funding boost

Personalised menswear styling and ecommerce service Thread has announced through a statement that it raised 22 million pounds (26.4 million dollars) in additional funding through Series B funding round led by Balderton Capital, Beringea, Forward Partners, and H&M group’s investment arm H&M CO:LAB, with participation from retail investor Maurice Helfgott, and former Lane Crawford deputy president Sebastian Picardo. This round brings total investment in Thread to over 40 million pounds (52.8 million dollars).

Commenting on the latest funding round, the company’s CEO and co-founder Kieran O’Neill, said in a statement: “Since the beginning of Thread, we have always built the service in collaboration with our customers. We're obsessive about understanding their needs, and have worked closely with customers to craft the experience. We feel lucky that this has resulted in a very loyal, engaged customer base. We’re excited to now give them the opportunity invest in the business on the same terms as our professional investors, and share in our success.”

The company said, it will use the funding to continue expanding its artificial intelligence team, as well as growing the brand into a household name. Later this year, Thread plans to allow customers to invest alongside professional investors on exactly the same financial terms, through leading crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube.

During the last year, Thread also signed partnerships with 50 additional partners. New brands include Barbour, Hugo Boss, Levi’s and Ted Baker, as well as emerging labels such as Wax London, Kestin Hare and The Workers Club. Thread also hired three new executives, including David Scott, previously operations director at Deliveroo, Rachel Sheridan, previously chief product officer and trading director at WorldStores, and Tim Grimsditch, previously VP marketing at Kano Computing and marketing director at Spotify.

Founded in London by Kieran O’Neill, Ben Kucsan, and Ben Phillips in 2012, the company combines the expertise of stylists with the power of machine learning algorithms and provides personalised style recommendations to men.