Taylor Wessing advises Farfetch on latest funding round

International law firm Taylor Wessing has advised Farfetch, the online community of the world’s best fashion boutiques and global brands, on the company’s latest successful funding round.

Farfetch has raised a total of $110m in its Series F funding round, advised by Qatalyst and led by renowned investment firms Temasek, IDG and Eurazeo. Existing investor, Vitruvian, who led the company’s Series D round, also participated.

Farfetch was founded in 2008 by José Neves, a Portuguese entrepreneur who has been involved in the world of fashion start-ups since the mid-1990s. With offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Moscow and Porto, Farfetch is a global community of over 400 visionary fashion boutiques and 75 global brands offering an inspirational shopping experience to fashion-forward consumers.

Farfetch strategically expanded their roster of retail partners to include direct contracts with brands in March 2015, and launched a white label platform solution – Farfetch Black & White – which saw its first client, Manolo Blahnik go live in March 2016. Taylor Wessing’s commercial team advised on both this agreement, and the creation of the platform.

James Maynard, General Counsel at Farfetch commented:

“This Series F funding round demonstrated the maturity of the Farfetch management team and its in-house legal team capability. It was the first deal of this type Farfetch has done with Taylor Wessing acting as external advisors to the Company. We felt that Taylor Wessing understood the Farfetch business extremely well which led to the smooth running of this complex transaction with a challenging timetable.”

Mike Turner, International Head of Technology, Media & Communications at Taylor Wessing added:

“This transaction saw us dealing with a complex consortium of investors and we were very pleased with the outcome for Farfetch. We are excited about what the future will hold for this bold and innovative player in the global e-commerce market and look forward to working with them again.”

Taylor Wessing has acted for Farfetch across a wide range of practice areas including commercial, data protection, consumer law, IT/IP, competition, finance, real estate and employment over the last year.

The Taylor Wessing team was led by partner Mike Turner and supported by associates Elizabeth Rhodes and Jemilla Olufeko.