DFJ leads £5m investment in SportPursuit
DFJ Esprit has led a £5m investment round for SportPursuit, a UK sport flash sales site.
The venture house was joined by Silicon Valley Bank.
The group invested under the Enterprise Investment Scheme. Other participants included angel investors William Reeve, chairman of Graze.com and co-founder of LOVEFiLM; Alex Chesterman, founder of Zoopla; and Alex Saint, CEO of Secret Escapes.
The fresh capital will be used for expanding SportPursuit's range of brands and products as well as expanding the company into new markets in Scandinavia and mainland Europe.
DFJ Esprit led a $2.3m funding round for SportPursuit in May 2012, joined by business angels including Chesterman, Reeve and Peter Draper, former marketing director for Manchester United football club.
Company
Founded in 2012, SportPursuit is a private shopping club that offers flash sales of sports brands for up to a week that are exclusively available to its member community. It partners with brands including Berghaus, Salomon, Icebreaker and Inov8, shipping its products to more than 40 countries.
People
Krishna Visvanathan is a partner at DFJ Esprit. Adam Pikett is the CEO and co-founder of SportPursuit.
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