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LONDON, United Kingdom — Tomorrow London Holdings has acquired a "substantial minority stake" in London-based streetwear brand A-Cold-Wall for an undisclosed sum. The investment marks Tomorrow London Holdings' first move into a trademark co-ownership. The multi-brand, multi-service group, which has worked with A-Cold-Wall on the brand's manufacturing, distribution and sales since July 2017, will also become its global exclusive licensee.
"We've developed a fashion platform which invests in and works with creative talents by providing them with integrated multi-services to create, support, nurture, develop and scale fashion brands while embracing diversity and sustainability," said Stefano Martinetto, the controlling shareholder and chief executive of Tomorrow London Holdings, a group of companies that offers sales, consulting, logistics and financial services to brands, including Marni, Ambush and Tibi.
"We've always been a company that has been self-funded, without debt, [and] to continue executing our ideas to the highest level, it was a natural progression to enter a partnership with someone that could meet our requirements," said Samuel Ross, who founded A-Cold-Wall in 2015 after starting his career as an assistant to Virgil Abloh.
Within just two years, the brand — known for its logoed t-shirts, distressed hoodies and utilitarian outerwear, which takes style cues from the tribes of the British class system — has seen rapid success. Between 2016 and 2017, A-Cold-Wall reached £1.3 million ($1.7 million) in revenue, while its stockists, which include Ssense, Barneys New York and Antonioli, grew by over 110 percent between Autumn/Winter 2017 and Spring/Summer 2018 seasons to 52. Recent collaborations with Nike and Fragment Design have further increased the brand’s exposure amongst street-savvy Millennial shoppers.
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Tomorrow's investment in A-Cold-Wall is the latest signal that investors are increasingly drawn to streetwear's attractive growth potential. In October 2017, private equity giant the Carlyle Group is said to have paid $500 million for a roughly 50-percent stake in streetwear label Supreme in a deal that valued the business at over $1 billion. The following month, skate and streetwear label Huf sold a 90 percent stake in its company for $63 million to Japanese investment firm TSI Holdings.
“We believe what Samuel [and right-hand man Andrew Harper] are doing has significant, long-lasting success in terms of how they talk to their customers,” said Martinetto. “We want people to be as excited about the products as they are with the message they’re receiving and we’ll provide [A-Cold-Wall] with the tools to do so.”
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