Taylor Wessing
Experience & Strategy
Insight
By Rebecca Burn-Callandar
7th Nov 2024
There are an estimated 41,000 venture capital firms in the world but only one has carved a successful niche backing next-generation brands driving cultural change on a massive scale.
London-based Felix Capital was created in 2015 to help support customer-centric businesses that are moving the needle in their respective fields. Its alumni include: Deliveroo, Oatly, Peloton, and CoCo Melon creator Moonbug.
Over the years, Marble has been lucky enough to partner with this groundbreaking investment house to put on some incredible events in the capital. As a specialist in the finance sector, we love to create the spaces where deals are done, insights are shared, and tomorrow’s household names take centre stage.
We caught up with venture capitalist Antoine Nussenbaum, one of the founding team at Felix Capital, to talk about the exciting trends that he has observed across his portfolio companies and get his take on how events will shape the future of brand creation and community engagement.
TLDR: The right events, at the right time, have the power to take a brand from zero to hero.
For Nussenbaum, the only reliable way to tell whether a brand is really blowing up is to go check out the connection with its community. “We want to find the brand builders and agents of change that know how to create and engage communities – and do a lot with very little”, he explains. “The best way to do that is to follow the queue”.
“Go outside, find the queue that stretches around the block and join it. English people love queuing and, you know what? So do we.”
He reveals that, at Felix Capital, investors attend the world’s culture-defining events to see which brands are making an impact there. “A teammate recently went to the Burning Man Ultramarathon in California because we knew the next generation of brands focused on Your Better Self would be there,” he says.
“We also went to the Wimbledon of Padel because that’s now the fastest-growing sport worldwide. We identify new trends, shift in behaviours, and then we go deep. It’s this curiosity that drives us.”
Exciting companies use real-world events to engage with fans and create impactful moments. Some of these are small scale, says Nussenbaum, but tiny can still be mighty.
“Look at local running clubs or meetups that are created by niche brands”, he explains. “If you can create a sense of community and build a loyal audience, that’s really powerful.”
Some events are more ambitious such as the recent collaboration between cosmetics icon MAC and Felix Capital-backed Lick, the DIY brand and paint maker. “We activated this collaboration across MAC’s physical stores, including the global flagship on Carnaby Street”, says Nussenbaum.
“Lick is an innovative brand – we did a colour version of Heinz Ketchup! We saw that MAC consumers – young professionals, first-time buyers, fashion-conscious women – could be Lick customers and this launch was a great way to test the thesis and bring together two culturally relevant brands.”
Felix Capital is an investor in Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop. Every year, Goop runs a wellness summit that attracts hundreds or even thousands of fans. “These events are core to Gwyneth’s proposition”, explains Nussenbaum.
“Yes, Goop is a polarizing brand but there is a massive community of people who love Gwyneth. They want to meet and exchange ideas on health and family health. The physical events are a great way to bring that community together.”
From small-scale clubs to blockbuster events, every party, concert, launch and conference has a part to play.
“We want to find the brands driving a real cultural shift, relevant to modern consumers, shaping the way they want to take care of themselves, eat, exercise, travel, work, and so on..” Nussenbaum explains.
“For these companies, events remain a part of the brand building mix. It might come first, as you test a product and take the pulse of the market, or it may come later after to complement existing channels or activate a new market”
According to Nussenbaum, investing and business building is all about people – and events bring people together. “Events, gatherings, authentic moments, these are all relevant”, he says. “Maybe I’m a romantic, but I hope we never lose the in-person interaction in our lives.”
Are you looking to grow your community and host your next finance event?
