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The Business of Fashion Announces $2.1m, in seed funding to build next generation fashion media company
February 18 2013
The Business of Fashion (BoF) announced today that it has raised $2.1m in seed funding, securing a minority investment from a group of prestigious global investors spanning the worlds of fashion, media and technology.
The investment round was led by Index Ventures (investors in groundbreaking fashion sites Net-a-Porter, ASOS, Etsy and Nasty Gal), and included participation from French luxury goods group LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton; Investors in leading e-commerce and digital content businesses such as Betfair, Ocado and Goal.com, Samos Investments; major founding investor in Net-a-Porter, Carmen Busquets; the technology and media investment firm of Hong Kong-based Novel Group, Novel TMT Ventures; and Advancit Capital, an early stage media, entertainment and technology fund launched by CBS/Viacom's vice chairman Shari Redstone.
Founded by Imran Amed in 2007 as a personal blog delivering sharp insight and analysis on the global fashion industry, BoF has since been bootstrapped by Amed and grown to become an indispensable professional resource for hundreds of thousands of fashion executives, creatives and entrepreneurs in more than 200 countries and territories. BoF content has been incorporated into the curricula of leading fashion and business schools around the world and has also attracted a growing audience of affluent and highly-educated consumers who are fascinated by the global fashion industry and crave access to BoF’s authentic, insider perspective.
“Over the past decade, the fashion industry has been radically reshaped by the forces of rapid globalisation, disruptive technology and a post-recessionary economy, which has created a dramatically changed landscape for executives, investors and other industry professionals to navigate each day,” said Imran Amed, BoF’s founder and CEO. “Our mission is to inform, stimulate and arm these individuals with a forward thinking, globally-minded resource for everything they need to perform in today's fast-paced, high-stakes fashion world.”
BoF’s highly respected and influential voice, sitting at the very heart of the $1.5 trillion global fashion, luxury and apparel industry, will enable the company to expand into new products and services for the sector. The new funding will be used to build the team and technology platform required to realise this potential.
“Today, BoF enters a new phase of growth, with a great group of investors to support us,” said Amed. “Each investor brings real strategic value to the table, and will be able to assist us in building a model for a next generation fashion media company suited for our increasingly global, digital and connected world.”
"At a time when the fashion industry is grappling with the challenges and the opportunities that the digital revolution is presenting, BoF is providing insight and information in a way that is vital in meeting these challenges" said Robin Klein, partner at Index Ventures. "BoF is founded on the principle that the highest quality information and content is as essential to the business of fashion as to the business of anything. Imran is a fantastic entrepreneur and we are looking forward to working with him as he continues to build this important next generation media company."
As a first step in this journey, today BoF launches a brand new website, with responsive design for easy consumption on mobile, tablet and web. www.businessoffashion.com
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