The influential streetwear site will use the new funding to scale its branded content, e-commerce and events businesses.
BERLIN, Germany — Influential streetwear and youth culture title Highsnobiety has raised an $8.5 million Series A round led by London-based venture firm Felix Capital. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. Highsnobiety plans to use the new funding to help scale its branded content, e-commerce and events businesses.
“We started working with Felix Capital about eight months ago and right away we had a good feeling about their team,” said Highsnobiety founder and publisher, David Fischer, who launched the lifestyle publication that began as a streetwear blog in 2005. The company, which has offices in Berlin, New York and London, has been profitable since its inception, with revenue growing 100 percent year-on-year for the past three years.
“We’ve been independent and self-funded for the past 13 years,” said Fischer. “Seeing the possibilities that we have as a brand today, we felt that if we could get a strong partner on board now, we could continue growing at this pace for the next couple of years, which as an independent business, we probably wouldn’t have been able to do.”
“Highsnobiety’s fast growing, global community represents the next generation of trend setters and early adopters,” said Frederic Court, managing partner at Felix Capital, which largely focuses on digital lifestyle businesses and has stakes in Farfetch and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, as well as The Business of Fashion. “[Highsnobiety] is helping brands connect with today’s youth in ways that drive culture forward.”
With over nine million unique monthly visitors (of which 80 percent visit the website daily), Highsnobiety has become one of the world’s top destinations for daily curated content on fashion, music, the arts and culture. Title Media, Highsnobiety’s parent company — also founded by Fischer — expanded its focus on the Highsnobiety brand in 2010 with the launch of a bi-annual print magazine that today has a circulation of 50,000. What Drops Now, an editorialised shopping experience that attracts 500,000 visitors a month, followed shortly after.
