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🤑 Three new funding opportunities, and one you loved from last week
🤑 Everlane is being sold to Shein and it’s not what you think
🤑 Need support, book a call with me and let’s sort your funding strategy in 50 mins
In last week’s newsletter you loved the SantanderX opportunity. So here it is again.
Grant FundHerShip - A recurring £10,000 grant for Black & Brown women. It’s aimed at early and ideas stage businesses to give you a leg up and make your dream come true.
Award Cartier Womens Initiative - a serious Fellowship programme open to amazing impact driven female founders. Grants of between $30,000-100,000.
Award FSB Giveaway - join the amazing FSB membership and enter a prize draw to win £5k. I always take a punt on weird stuff like this, it’s like doing the scratch cards!
These Top Opportunities were lifted from the Funding Opportunities Database, a unique listing of over 80 grants, awards, accelerators and other funding opportunities for your small business (with a focus on creatives and social & environmental impact). Upgrade for just £4 a month and get Friday Funding Chats Live, and interviews with founders who have funded.
This week we heard that Everlane, the American fashion brand that trademarked ‘radical transparency’ as their slogan, is being sold to Shein. Thats right, the poster child for ethical manufacturing was just sold to it’s anthesis, the epitimy of fast fashion and unethical standards - Shein.
I’ve heard a lot of takes on this - best by far come from Substacker Shivam Gusain, he’s written several good articles on this. Some have said that this is the death knell for ethical fashion, that it simply cannot survive the growth and scale required to keep investors happy. Some are saying that Shein are doing fashion a favour by keeping Everlane in business (whatever that might look like).
So what actually happened? Everlane was founded in 2011 by Michael Preysman with a simple goal - make ethical clothing with transparent pricing. Indeed, Everlane was one of the first ‘sustainable’ brands I was introduced to and it was an education for me in terms of how my clothes were made and how much it cost. It wasn’t fussy, the Everlane customer thrived on basics, and thats what they got.
It grew to the extent that, in 2020, L Catterton, the LVMH-linked private equity firm, led an $85 million funding round that valued Everlane at $550 million. ****This was proof to most that ethical clothing brands could scale, they could attract investors. However the wheels began to fall off soon after. In 2020, Everlane fired a group of customer service employees who had recently petitioned for union recognition - not a good look for a so called ‘ethical’ brand.
Shortly after that, in 2021, Micheal Preysman left and was replaced by 2 CEO’s in 3 years. Revenue declined too from an estimated $200 million around 2023 to around $170 million by early 2026. In February 2026 they started selling on - you’ll never guess it - Amazon! Which was likely the early signs that things were going very wrong.
Shein are rumoured to have purchased Everlane for $100million, to absolve Everlane’s $90million of debt. (Rumoured because neither are yet to confirm the sale). Thats a huge reduction in it’s valuation 6 years ago. So what went wrong?
There are a few points to mention here;
Narrative - Everlane was an ‘ethical’ brand in name alone (remember that trademarking of ‘radical transparency’?). They weren’t a B Corp and while they did much to push transparency into main stream fashion, they had no mission lock. So really, they were only as ‘ethical’ as their activities, and when you union bust, thats not a great look. Ethical positioning is great in the early stages, and this was primarily what Everlane were known for, however the product was not sufficient enough to protect it when unethical practices took place.
No Mission Lock - Purpose driven businesses often risk something called ‘Mission Drift’ when they bring in external investors. This is because the pressure to produce x10 ROI (return on investment) can often push businesses to cut costs and generally deprioritise their ethical commitments. A ‘Mission Lock’ is a legally binding document in the businesses articles of association that mean the Directors of the company have a legal obligation to stick to the businesses stated purpose or mission. Needless to say Everlane didn’t have one of these.
Of course, I wasn’t a fly on the wall, I can’t tell you exactly when the proverbial shit hit the fan. I think Shivan put it best when he said that ‘When a company’s founding moral claim is exposed as inconsistent, there is no analogous remediation pathway. You cannot audit your way back to moral authority.’
Why am I telling you all this? Well there is a lesson here for all of us. It’s not that scaling through investment is the bullet in the head of your purpose driven business, because other businesses have done it. It’s not that ethics are inherently unscalable. It’s that environmental and social justice have to be so deeply woven into your business that these things cannot go wrong. Better yet, get yourself a Mission Lock to ensure yourself, your stakeholders and your shareholders that your purpose is non-negotiable.
Do you read these emails and think ‘I don’t know where to start’? Or maybe you have started but find yourself stuck and in need of a fresh perspective in how your business makes money? I am now offering Funding Diagnostic Calls for small & micro business founder in need of a collaborate way to diagnose a new funding strategy.
We’ll explore your goals, process, challenges, and successes. I’ll as you focused questions to ensure we build a complete picture of your specific needs, helping you move past any roadblocks.
What to Expect:
You will leave the 50-minute call with:
A fresh perspective on your funding process, helping you to see it differently.
New possibilities and open doors for funding applications.
Clarity on a potential next step, including the option for a follow-up session to ensure you stay accountable and action your points.
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