Fashion Gaming App Drest Raises 15 Million Pounds in New Funding Round
LONDON — Drest, the mobile gaming company that enables players to become fashion stylists and brands to appeal to new audiences, has raised 15 million pounds in fresh funding from its longstanding investor.
The money has been earmarked for the development of a new product proposition, Drest Game 2.0, which promises to offer a more sophisticated user experience and a larger, global marketing platform for fashion, luxury, beauty and jewelry brands.
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The company said the new funds will allow Drest to grow and scale in the fields of gaming, media, data and e-commerce with the ambition of becoming the leading creative platform for fashion, entertainment and lifestyle gamification.
The updated plaform is being rolled out progressively in different markets and will make its official launch worldwide in the first half of 2024.
Drest launched in 2019 as a mobile-only gaming platform for fashion fans, who undertake specific challenges in the metaverse, such as styling a hyper-realistic avatar head-to-toe for the Oscars or taking part in brand-specific competitions.
Community members vote on the styles and the winners level up through the game, winning virtual prizes and other rewards.
Its revenue comes from customers’ in-game spend, partnerships with brands and affiliate links. Drest has a partnership with Farfetch, which allows players to transform the virtual clothing and accessories from the game into real-life purchases.
The company has so far raised 45 million pounds, including the latest funds, and user growth has been increasing 250 percent year-on-year, according to Drest.
The company works directly with more than 260 brands including Breitling, Cartier, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Gucci, Prada and Valentino.
Lisa Bridgett, chief executive officer of Drest, said the new investment “is testament to the strength of our product delivery and pipeline of ideas, and will help Drest scale” in a tough market.
“We are now ready to take the business to the next level and offer a new one-of-a-kind experience to our users while maintaining the core elements of the game,” Bridgett said in an interview.
“There is an undeniable interest in gaming from the luxury fashion and lifestyle industries and we are very well positioned to cater to this increasing demand. We very much look forward to the next chapter,” she added.
Bridgett contends Drest is an ideal platform for brands across the lifestyle categories to reach new, younger audiences. The Drest users are mainly women between 18 and 29 years old.
“We’re luxury fashion, beauty, jewelry, entertainment, interiors, travel — all of these different categories and audiences are relevant when you come into one of our challenges. There are so many opportunities for customer acquisition, engagement excitement and content. For the brands, we are a fantastic marketing channel to an audience they are trying to address,” Bridgett claimed, adding that brands are intrigued by the possibilities of gaming.
“They’re looking for new formats, in order to democratically and organically reach new audiences,” she said.
The latest investment round is from the family office of Drest cofounder and co-chair Graham Edwards, a businessman and tech entrepreneur.
His cofounder and co-chair is Lucy Yeomans, previously global content director for Net-a-porter and editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar U.K.
Edwards said the new funding “will support Lucy in her quest to bring the merged worlds of gaming and fashion to an excitingly large global audience.”
He described the updated platform as a “highly improved, metaverse-enabled version of its current product.”
The latest iteration of Drest will include a series of new features. The new platform will offer a more immersive experience, allow users to create their own avatars and share them, too, according to Bridgett.
“We’re also very keyed in on all of the Web 3.0 initiatives, whether that’s in digital fashion, augmented reality or virtual reality,” with the ongoing aim of enriching the customer, and brand, experience, she added.
Additional games within the Web 3.0 and lifestyle space are being explored, she added, and Drest will enter into a research and development phase over the next 18 months.
Drest said it has recently appointed a gaming and Web 3.0 expert, Henri Holm, as chief financial officer. He previously worked with privately funded, venture capital-funded, and publicly listed companies, driving finance, business development and digital strategy creation.
The new investment has come at a crucial time. Mobile gaming revenues are on the rise and the competition in the fashion and gaming space is becoming fierce.
As reported last week, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has teamed with Fortnite creator Epic Games to create new immersive customer experiences and add new tools to its design pipeline with 3D tech.
Last October, Burberry partnered with Minecraft on a game called “Burberry: Freedom to Go Beyond.” It offered a special capsule collection that customers could shop digitally within the game and in stores at seven global locations.
Burberry previously partnered with Mythical Games to launch an NFT collection on Blankos Block Party, an open-world, multiplayer game.
According to NewZoo, which provides data on gaming, mobile gaming revenues hit $92.2 billion in 2022 and accounted for 50 percent of the $184.4 billion global gaming market’s revenues.
It is estimated that the global gaming market will be worth $221 billion by 2025.
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