Mallzee, the fashion app revolutionising the way you shop, today announces an exciting £500k investment from a range of leading investors -Par Equity, the Scottish Investment Bank and leading angel investors including Gareth Williams, CEO of Skyscanner and serial investor Rob Dobson.
On the business’s first birthday, the Edinburgh based team of recent graduates and entrepreneurs- lead by 26 year old CEO Cally Russell– are setting their sights high: the new injection of cash paves the way for international expansion and doubling the size of their modest team to 14 staff over the next twelve months.
Of the investment Russell said, ‘It’s great to have been able to pull together such a great group of investors in such a short space of time. In the last 12 months we’ve started to change the way the world shops with our mobile focused approach and this proves that we’re going in the right direction.’
Paul Munn, director at Par Equity explained their backing of the company by saying, “Mallzee is an innovative product addressing a fast changing consumer market. Choice abounds but shoppers and retailers want technology to help them make sense of the market. The team at Mallzee have made significant progress to date and this investment will provide a runway for the business in its next stage of growth and development”
Kerry Sharp, Head of the Scottish Investment Bank, said, “That this ambitious young company has attracted such a cohort of investors so soon after starting up is a real testament to the management team and the potential of the product. We look forward to helping Mallzee to scale up their business and bring the product to more consumers across the globe with this latest round of funding.”
Pulling together over one million items of clothing from 200 top fashion brands, Mallzee is swiftly becoming the ultimate one stop shop and now boasts a user base into the tens of thousands. Described as a “personal shopper in your pocket”, the fashion finding app has already signed up top names such as ASOS, Topshop, Urban Outfitters and River Island and designer favourites including Liberty London, Glassworks and Oki-Ni.
With their new investment backing their high hopes, the team behind Mallzee have big plans for the future of shopping. Russell announced “We’ve just released a new version which is much faster and adds lots of exciting new retailers. Later this year we’ll be opening up the app to other countries and will be aiming to follow in the footsteps of Skyscanner and build a global business from Edinburgh that changes an industry. By the end of 2014 we aim to increase our user base from the tens of thousands to 250,000 shoppers all around the world.’”
The team have already seen international success after being highlighted by Yahoo as one of the 6 apps changing the way the world shops forever.
With interest pouring in from across the globe, there can be no denying that Mallzee are set to truly change the way the world shops and add their name to the list of global Scottish tech companies, following in the footsteps of the very people backing them to do just so.