Sosandar raises £5m in share in placing

Online womenswear brand Sosandar has revealed it has raised over £5m through an “oversubscribed” share offering.

The AIM-listed company proposed placing on 24 May and which closed earlier this morning (25 May) of 26,190,210 new ordinary shares of 0.1p each which was conducted via an accelerated bookbuild at a price of 20p per share.

Sosandar said it would use the funds raised to capitalise on the growth opportunity with its third party retail partners where it revealed “currently on average only 9% of its total product range is available for sale. 

It currently has third party partnerships with John Lewis, M&S and Next. In particular, the firm added it will focus on investing in stock from the Autumn / Winter 2021 season onwards, including increasing both the number of styles and the number of units per style to be sold through the third party partner websites.

Sosandar will also look to provide additional funding to engage with other third party partners in the UK and internationally and provide additional working capital and further balance sheet flexibility to “support other incremental growth initiatives”.

Last month, Sosandar revealed it expects to report a 35% year-on-year revenue rise to £12.2m for the financial year ended 31 March 2021.

While the group added it expected an EBITDA loss for the year, it anticipated it would be reduced by 60% when compared to 2020’s losses.

The e-commerce retailer’s number of orders increased 29% to 276,000 for FY 2021, while repeat orders increased 40% to 190,000 for the period.

Ali Hall and Julie Lavingron, co-CEOs at Sosandar, at the time said: “We are delighted to have shown resilience and our entrepreneurial spirit, overcoming challenges to deliver a significant improvement in revenue and reduction in EBITDA losses.

“The progress we are making reflects the scale of our opportunity and growing demand for our unique offering in the market.”