Sneaker marketplace Laced raises new funding

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 1, 2023

Laced — the British sneaker marketplace — is aiming to make access to in-demand products fairer and has raised £10 million/€11.2 million to help it do that.

That London-based business raised the Series A funding in a round led by another London business, Talis Capital, which focuses on early-stage investments and had already taken part in the seed funding for Laced. At the same time, the company has attracted new investment from H&M Group Ventures while other existing investors also took part in the latest round.

Laced was born on the back of the sneaker boom that also saw exclusive, hard-to-access drops, as well as bots buying up virtually all the inventory of more widely available online sneaker drops.

Its technology aims to counter that and it now and connects buyers and sellers of rare, exclusive or simply desirable sneakers (and other luxury goods). It says its service is easy to use, secure and transparent, also offering authentication, same-day order processing, deliveries on every day of the week and much faster payment for sellers than other marketplaces.

The authentication aspect is key in a market in which sales of counterfeit sneakers far exceed those of the real thing.

It has now raised a total of €15.8 million in its effort to achieve its goal and will use the new money to expand and develop its technology and product offer following platform general merchandise value topping €93 million.

The five-year-old company was founded by Chris Gibbons, who’s its CEO. He said be believes “everyone deserves access to luxury goods” and that its tech can democratise access in a safe and secure environment. 

He’s been building his team to do just that in recent periods and recently appointed a technical chief, as well as naming Farfetch’s Doran Black as head of product design.

Talis Capital said it was attracted to the business as part of its strategy of focusing on firms “with founders who are set to redefine their industries with unconventional thinking”. 

And Nanna Andersen, Head of New Growth & Ventures at H&M Group, added that as well as providing consumers with products they want, the firm also operates “an important platform to extend the lifecycle of products”.