Nuw is a fashion exchange platform which recirculates high street fashion on a mass scale without the need for physical infrastructure. Founder Aisling Byrne was inspired to create the company as a fashion lover who understood that the industry has devastating social and environmental impacts. After a trip to India where she saw the negative repercussions of fast-fashion manufacturing, she launched Nuw to provide a sustainable, accessible and affordable solution to these problems. Aisling joined Connectd to find investment to fund the growth of her innovative business.
It's been a really good way of being able to connect with a wider group of investors that you know, and are in some way vetted, you can tell that everyone that's on the platform is actively investing.
I'm Aisling, I'm the founder of Nuw, the fashion marketplace where your clothes are your currency. We've done this to give fast fashion and high street fashion a new life, a lot of the time, it's really difficult to resell those more affordable pieces of clothing. So we've created a system where you can trade the clothes that you don't want for clothes that you do want.
I, as a founder, came to the idea after I'd spent time in India, and I saw firsthand the social and environmental impact of fast fashion, and this was just after the Rana Plaza building disaster. So for me, it was definitely a personal experience, both as someone watching the fashion industry and as very much a fashion consumer, and who wanted to change the industry.
So I came across connected during our pre-seed round, just at the start of the pandemic. So there were a lot of different factors that were affecting our ability to raise as a team. Lockdown was one of them; we couldn't meet people in person, which is just more difficult for building that relationship. Another factor was being able to get introductions. You can expand your network a certain amount just by meeting people day-to-day, even if they're not investors, you get to have a wider community of people that you might be able to meet.
The struggle when you're a founder is often the network that you have. There are loads of different platforms where you can, at face value, see investors and what they're doing, but the massive struggle is how do you talk to them, how do you get your foot in the door if you don't have a close contact and if you're not from that location? Where do you go to do that?
So I came across connected during our pre-seed round, just at the start of the pandemic. So there were a lot of different factors that were affecting our ability to raise as a team. Lockdown was one of them; we couldn't meet people in person, which is just more difficult for building that relationship. Another factor was being able to get introductions. You can expand your network a certain amount just by meeting people day-to-day, even if they're not investors, you get to have a wider community of people that you might be able to meet.
Finding Connected was like all of the opportunities that were shown on LinkedIn, with the ability to actually genuinely connect with people. So in contrast to something like LinkedIn, which is probably the most obvious example, you don't simply just cold outreach to people, you request to connect with them, and they accept if they want to connect with you. Importantly, there's a mutual understanding that this conversation is about investment.
I find it really interesting, connecting with investors on Connected, mainly because you could find out so much about them before you actually connect. So things like ticket size, and people that they've invested in before. Also, quite strategically, if they do and don't invest in certain things. A lot of the time, when you're trying to find leads or connections, you're making a lot of assumptions on what they talk about, and there's very little information on how they're actually active as an investor. That kind of information is really valuable for a founder to be able to just make very specific and targeted lists. I've also known some of our investors are active on the network.
It's been a really good way of being able to connect with a wider group of investors that you know, and are in some way vetted, you can tell that everyone that's on the platform is actively investing. And if they happen to not be actively investing, that's really clear, it's a really good way to plan and schedule the timeline of your round. Knowing that you have a full funnel of investors that you can speak to, very quickly after that connection is made.
In our pre-seed round, we were very much looking for that larger ticket angel investor but were happy to bring on smaller angel investors as well, who had experience in the retail sector. Our concept and our solution is very industry specific: it's geared towards mass market consumers, but a lot of people who understand the fundamental problem, have a background in highstreet retail or have a background in previous retail platforms. So for us, we wanted to target those that go B2C, rather than strictly B2B, which is the majority of what UK investors will go after. So knowing that they're very much focused on consumer was a big one for us. Also, we wanted people who invest in female founders, who have done that before and have a track record on that.Going forward we want to know that the investor is really aligned with us in terms of our values. Finally, we needed to understand the ticket size that they do.
When you're planning your round, it's really important to know what people who you're talking to can contribute, so that you can get that timeline quite firm and make the best use of both of your time - both you and the investor.
We're raising our seed round for Nuw and that's to fuel further product development. We’re planning to build a platform that can scale globally, and getting the tech that sits underneath that and is more than able to handle that. We'll be looking to launch in the US in 2022 and also start our expansion into the European market. As a separate side of the business, we look at b2b partnerships, targeting key highstreet retailers, providing a way for them to be able to recirculate the products that were previously sold in their store through various different users and extend the life cycle of those pieces of clothing. So we’re planning growth in both the user perspective and how we evolve to help retailers become more circular in their model.
