UK men’s shaving supplier Cornerstone secures new £3.5m round of investment

by Startacus Admin

British Shaving Pioneer Cornerstone secures further £3.5 million investment and adds e-commerce veteran to its board.

We'd like to think we can spot and scout startup talent here at Startacus HQ.

Back in 2014, we interviewed young entrepreneur Oliver Bridge who had just launched Cornerstone, a subscription service offering a flexible, regular delivery of razor blades and men's shaving supplies.

Well, lots has happened for Oliver and Cornerstone over the last three years and we are delighted to announce that they have just completed a new £3.5m round of investment led by private equity firm Calculus Capital, with e-commerce veteran William Reeve (previously on the boards of Graze, Lovefilm, Zoopla & Paddy Power) joining as a board advisor.

Cornerstone – provide quality British skin care products and German engineered razors to 140,000 customers around the UK via an online subscription service – and with their latest £3.5m round of investment have now raised £8m since launch in 2014.

The round, led by UK growth investor Calculus Capital, sees Cornerstone add to its impressive list of experienced angel investors that already includes: Quidco CEO Andy Oldham, ex-Jack Wills Chairman Will Hobhouse, Charles Tyrwhitt Chairman Nick Wheeler and ex-President of Levi Jeans Joe Middleton.   

Cornerstone was born out of young entrepreneur Oliver Bridge’s personal frustrations with the discomfort and expensive nature of wet shaving – “I'd always hated shaving - it was painful, cost a fortune, and I hated shopping for toiletries. Finally, one day I just thought - there has to be a better way to do this, and I set about finding a way to make it combine great products with the convenience of a subscription service”.

The Cornerstone journey is pretty inspiring.

Oliver launched Cornerstone in June 2014 with £10,000 of his own savings and a £5,000 Startup loan. Its customer base has grown from 0 to 140,000 subscribers and the team has expanded to 27 members of staff at Cornerstone’s London HQ. To top it all off, Cornerstone won ‘Best Razor’ in both 2015 and 2016 from Shortlist and AskMen and has twice won the publicly voted ‘People’s Champion’ award at the annual Startups Awards. Oliver was also selected as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in late 2016.

The firm will be broadening its range of products across the remainder of 2017, moving into new toiletries categories such as shampoo and dental care, in a move described by Oliver Bridge as ‘an all-out assault on the men’s aisle at Boots – we don’t think men should have to shop for, or even think about shopping for toiletries – we’re here to fix that’.

Private equity firm Calculus Capital, which is leading the latest investment round in Cornerstone, has a strong track record of backing growing British businesses. Calculus has 18 years’ experience in SME investing, supporting dynamic companies across a diverse range of sectors, from sports and leisure to clean-tech, hosted software and healthcare. 

• #cornerstone
• #shaving
• #subscription service
• #investment
• #oliver bridge
• #calculus capital
• #shaving supplier

Published on: 6th August 2017