Community Clothing, the British brand and social enterprise founded by designer and ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’ judge, Patrick Grant, has launched a new crowdfunding campaign through Crowdcube with the aim to raise “a minimum of £500,000”.
Community Clothing started with a crowdfunder via Kickstarter back in 2016, and also crowdfunded its underwear launch in 2022.
The latest campaign is set to run for an estimated two to three weeks, though Grant says it really depends on the speed at which people subscribe.
Potential investors can head to Community Clothing’s Crowdcube page and give an indication as to how much they might invest, though there is no commitment at this stage. It could be just the minimum amount of just over £10, or it could be £1,000 or more.
Once registered, Community Clothing will send an email to say when early access will be open with the required link. Once live, budding investors will have 24 hours to subscribe for shares before they go on sale to the general public.
Grant told TheIndustry.fashion: “If everyone that’s signed up for early access were to buy the shares they’ve suggested they might, then the campaign could be over very rapidly. Early signs are encouraging.
“We’ve always been about creating a community, and doing an equity raise this way feels like a great way to strengthen our ties with the brilliant community of makers and customers that we’ve built over our first nine years.”
Commenting on what the funds will be used for, Grant said: “Primarily we just want more people to hear our story, our big ambition is to get everyone wearing well made locally made clothes – so we’ll use a chunk of this money to help spread the word.
“If we go past our minimum target, it will help us add more stock of some of our fastest selling pieces, as there are some things that we really struggle to keep in stock at the moment.”
In terms of the risks and likelihood of success for investors, Grant added: “It’s far from guaranteed, but we’ve made a brilliant start over the years we’ve been going, and we’ve built a great customer base (over 100,000 customers).
“We’ve a got a solid five star rating on Trustpilot and we’ve been growing really nicely these past few years. We also think we have a model that’s fit for the future, so we’re very optimistic about our chances of success.”