Mobile gaming company secures eight-figure funding following 250 per cent growth

DREST, a mobile gaming company that ‘opens up the often exclusive worlds of luxury fashion, beauty and lifestyle to everyone, everywhere’, has announced that it raised £15m of funding to continue development of its new product proposition, DREST Game 2.0.

The funding reinforces London headquartered DREST’s status as the “premium fashion gaming experience”, allowing the company to build on its strong momentum.

Since its launch in 2019, DREST has recorded 250 per cent year-on-year user growth, raised £30m, and works directly with over 260 brands including Breitling, Cartier, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Gucci, Prada and Valentino.

The investment comes at a time when mobile gaming revenues reached $92.2bn in 2022, accounting for 50 per cent of the $184.4bn global gaming market revenues. It is estimated that the global gaming market will be worth $221bn by 2025, according to NewZoo.

DREST merges the creative worlds of luxury fashion, beauty and lifestyle with the “endless possibilities of the metaverse”, offering players the chance to exhibit and improve their styling talent using the latest luxury fashion and beauty collections to style hyper-realistic avatars.

Through its in-game challenges, DREST is a platform for user-generated content, with the digital fashion assortment provided by FARFETCH as well as brands directly, allowing players to easily discover, style and shop the latest collections.

DREST combines gamification with brand marketing and partnership opportunities, enabling its stakeholders to access and interact with new and highly-engaged audiences.

The investment round was agreed with the family office of DREST co-founder and co-chair Graham Edwards. Graham understood the potential of DREST from its early ideation with fellow founder and co-chair Lucy Yeomans, previously global content director for NET-A-PORTER and editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK for 12 years.

Graham Edwards commented: “We’re delighted to be able to support Lucy in her quest to bring the merged worlds of gaming and fashion to an excitingly large global audience.”

Lisa Bridgett, CEO DREST, added: “We are thrilled to have secured investment to help us scale DREST, especially in such a tough market. This is testament to the strength of our product delivery and pipeline of ideas.

“We are now ready to take the business to the next level, and offer a new one-of-a-kind experience to our users while maintaining the core elements of the game. There is an undeniable interest in gaming from the luxury fashion and lifestyle industries and we are very well positioned to cater to this increasing demand.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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