Cornerstone Partners leads a £600k round into Nudea

Online underwear brand Nudea has secured £600,000 in seed funding as its unique fit-centric model proves a hit with shoppers.

The investment comes as more customers seek accessible, size-inclusive, stylish options for bra-shopping online — an activity accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nudea’s mission to help bra-wearers find their true fit has attracted this new pool of investors to support the round, bringing the total raised since inception in late 2019 to £1.1m. Other investors in the round included a group of angels led by investor James Eden and the founders. Wilfred Fianko from Cornerstone Partners and James Eden will both be joining Nudea’s board.

Wilfred Fianko, co-founder of lead investor Cornerstone Partners commented:

“Supporting Nudea’s female founders on their entrepreneurship journey is for us a highlight. Their industry expertise and vision for the future of the online underwear space is really inspiring. I’m excited to see them build out their team, sustain and scale the brand’s remarkable year-one success and make further impact in terms of accessibility in self-fitting.”

Priya Downes, CEO and co-founder of Nudea comments:

“Having the backing of Cornerstone Partners is an ideal fit for Nudea — particularly their commitment to underrepresented founders and inclusive businesses. As a female-led business whose central ethos is inclusivity, we are pleased to be aligning with a fund that complements our values. We have an absolutely stellar team of product innovators, most notably Sophie, our creative director, who has over 25 years’ experience leading design at renowned underwear brands. We’re really excited to have the backing and support of our investors to grow our business set to an exciting backdrop of a rapidly-changing retail environment.”

She added:

“The pandemic has, in fact, served as a tailwind for us to grow even faster than we could have predicted, given our value proposition of self-fitting, simple online purchasing and hassle-free returns. We have also seen that COVID-19 has accelerated digital change in the shopping space by 3 to 4 years in the space of 6 months. We genuinely believe customer behaviour has permanently shifted too, and the future of bra shopping is virtual, online and from the comfort of your home.

None of this comes as a surprise to Nudea. Commenting on their value system, which has sat at the heart of the brand from day one,

Priya noted:

“We make it our business that bra-wearers feel supported and that means accountability when it comes to inclusivity, diversity and accessibility. We’re particularly supportive of those going through bodily change, which is when bra-fitting is essential, but emotions are often high. We saw that the traditional retail environment wasn’t servicing these bra-wearers, so we developed our bespoke Fit Tape product, combined with our Virtual Fit and Online sizing quiz. Those bra-wearers are now coming to NUDEA — to the safe space that we’ve created.”

If you are a founder who is seeking investment or interested in learning more about Cornerstone Partners, please visit our website at www.cornerstonepartners.co.uk.

For more information, please contact:

Wilfred Fianko, Co Founder of Cornerstone Partners, wilfred@cornerstonepartners.co.uk

About Cornerstone Partners (“Cornerstone”)

Cornerstone Partners is the leading angel network for black and diverse founding teams in the UK. We focus our attention on this group because we believe their entrepreneurial talent is often overlooked, underestimated, and underrepresented in the traditional funding community.

We are a generalist angel syndicate providing investment of between £25k and £100k into post revenue businesses across the UK. We add value by leveraging the background and skillset of our fellow partners and external talent network. In addition to providing capital, Cornerstone runs an internship programme to widen access to angel investing, an annual scale up programme for post revenue businesses and commissions research to raise awareness of the benefits of diversity led investing.

Since inception, Cornerstone has supported 13 UK businesses and invested more than £940k in aggregate. Examples of our recent investments include Tectonic, Coordinate Sport and Hutch Logistics.