London-based SPOKE dresses up with £5 million to customise menswear

London-based custom-made on demand menswear brand Spoke has raised £5 million in a crowd-funding round on the Seedrs platform. The round was supplemented by existing investors, led by Oxford Capital, with participation from Forward Partners, BGF and 24 Haymarket.

According to Clement Bigot, senior investment manager at Seedrs, the crowdfunding round saw the participation of over 1,500 investors and was the most successful campaign on the Seedrs platform so far in 2022.

Talking about the crowdfunding round, CEO and founder Ben Farren said: “The success of Spoke has always been underpinned by an incredibly engaged community of SPOKEsmen - and for years we’ve been asked about opportunities to invest. We have an unusually personal connection with our customers. So, it feels right that they join us on the journey as we build the world’s most personal menswear brand.”

The company is on a mission to build the world’s most personal menswear brand, developing a unique platform to deliver a customised finish in over 400 size options across its legwear ranges, covering leg length, waist and build. There are also taper options for calves.

So how does it do it? The company claims its proprietary Fit Finder, machine learning technology matches a customer to their perfect size in just sixty seconds.

The company is looking at spreading its wings in the global market and that’s where the extra capital injection will be used. The company will increase focus in the U.S., which is SPOKE’s second largest market after the U.K. A dedicated U.S. team will be set up, to be based in London, with the aim of more than quadrupling the revenues in the U.S. by 2024. The company also recently opened a distribution centre in Germany to hand finish all items for local distribution, and service more efficiently its growing business across Continental Europe.

David Mott, founding partner at Oxford Capital said: “At Oxford Capital we are passionate about backing founders and we’re thrilled to see the progress the team has made in growing the SPOKE brand.  The company has successfully managed the changing needs of consumers - growth over the last year and projections for the year ahead are really promising.”