The commercial magic of the Spice Girls remains as strong as ever, as Emma Bunton’s ethical baby product business Kit & Kin, was responsible for the fastest raise in Angel Investment Network’s (AIN) 14-year history. It achieved its target of £420k in just one week on the UK’s largest online platform connecting start-up businesses with investors.
AIN has revealed more than £1m was offered in total for her eco-friendly nappies, wipes and skincare business but Kit & Kin decided to only accept £420k at this time, an amount which included a key strategic investor.
The raise received unprecedented interest from around the world amongst its 170,000 strong worldwide community of investors. Bunton’s business was launched in 2016 by Bunton and business partner Christopher Money, with their products available through high street retailers as well as their e-commerce platform. The investment will be used for staff, expansion and stock supply (to service larger orders.
According to Money, “The raise via the AIN has certainly surpassed all expectations and we ended up having to cap the number of discussions. We’ve come away from the raise with a select few who will bring significant strategic value that will certainly strengthen our offering and help us realise our potential over the years to come.”
Money and Bunton will be hoping to emulate the success of another celebrity turned entrepreneur, Jessica Alba, whose business ‘The Honest Company’ floated for just shy of $1bn in 2017.
Ed Stephens, global head of brokerage at AIN said, “The level of interest for Kit & Kin’s business was unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It would normally take around 6 weeks to raise a similar amount – we had pledges for over one million and had to turn investors away. As a business it has some great fundamentals, but clearly Emma Bunton’s extra spice was a key ingredient.”
Bunton was famous for promoting girl power and her business was promoted through a new section on Angel Investment Network focused on supporting female founders and investors. This initiative was set up to address the underrepresentation of women as investors and founders in the industry. The investor community on AIN in the UK consists of around 17,000 angel investors, but less than 10% of these are women. AIN wants to lead the way in tackling this industry problem starting with increasing the visibility of women-led businesses and helping them to find investment and mentoring from investors.
The round was completed at the end of February.
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