Online marketplace Cult Mia secures £2.5 million in funding

London-based online marketplace, Cult Mia, has raised £2.5 million in seed funding to "supercharge its growth".

Home to sustainable and conscious luxury fashion, Cult Mia, has a gross margin in the top 1% in the industry. The company has a return rate 16% below the industry average and a customer acquisition cost 31% more efficient than competitors in the market.

Cult Mia, founded in 2019 by entrepreneur Nina Briance, has agility in its curation and doesn’t face inventory risk following the Farfetch marketplace model.

The platform has combined the best of both worlds, creating a new business model that the investors jumped at backing, resulting in an oversubscribed seed round in October.

Mark Pearson, Founder & Managing Partner at Fuel Ventures, commented: “Cult Mia's long-term vision and focus on long-term relationships, both with the platform's brands and customers, excites us and speaks to our experience working with marketplaces previously.

"We've watched such significant growth in the luxury marketplace space, but have never really been keen to involve ourselves. Why? Because the majority of companies we've seen have had poor margins and the same stock as the major players. We've never been convinced that's a space for us. We feel like what Cult Mia is building allows us to enter this space confidently."

Sanghamitra Karra, Managing Director and EMEA Head of the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Group, added: "We have been impressed by Cult Mia’s attractive platform, providing a high-quality experience to customers from over 42 countries. Cult Mia has built an impressive footprint of over 320 independent brands and partnered with eminent fashion authorities in its first few years. Nina and the team bring a dynamic, values-driven approach to the business and have grown Cult Mia impressively since its founding in 2019."

Read TheIndustry.fashion's interview with Nina Briance, the Founder of Cult Mia, here.