Funding founders: Consumer

Founder-run consumer companies can often reach a point where their ambition outstrips their resources. The right partner can help, providing not just capital but also expertise to drive growth. Inflexion offers flexible funding and hands-on support in international expansion, digital enhancement, commercial effectiveness, M&A, talent and sustainability.   

Founder-run businesses benefit from the wisdom and passion of their creators and often have a clear focus as they grow. Sometimes, however, additional funding is needed to really accelerate growth, or the founder may wish to take a step back and wants to be sure the business is in capable hands.

“Welcoming external capital can be a scary step as it’s new, and that is why it is important to meet with many potential partners, to find one where you establish trust and an aligned vision,” stresses Tom Pemberton, Partner and Head of Consumer at Inflexion. He adds that consumers increasingly look for responsible supply chains and sustainability, and often expect a seamless omnichannel experience and a strong, differentiated brand proposition.  

Inflexion has invested over €900 million in high-growth consumer businesses. Typically acting as the first institutional backer, Inflexion has built deep experience in maintaining vision, culture and brand values while providing the capital and expertise to drive further growth.

Blue Light Card: The purpose-driven loyalty marketplace reimagined its leadership bench to allow the founder to step back while remaining influential, replatformed its offering to give more frontline workers better benefits, and expanded geographically and into new customer groups with Inflexion’s backing. 

Goat Agency: Inflexion backed the visionary co-founders of influencer and social media marketing agency Goat during a period of rapid growth and internationalisation, with EBITDA and US revenues more than tripling before its sale to WPP.  

Lintbells: Lintbells scaled rapidly with Inflexion’s support, expanding from its Hertfordshire roots into the US, building a leading direct-to-consumer model and strengthening its leadership team ahead of a successful exit.

Medik8: The British founder-led brand was transformed into a leading global skincare player during four years with Inflexion, quadrupling its sales, expanding significantly in the US and Asia-Pacific, and developing into a digitally powered D2C business before L'Oréal acquired a majority stake. Inflexion remains a minority investor alongside the management team, Founder and L'Oréal. 

Blue Light Card

Blue Light Card (BLC) is a purpose-driven marketplace dedicated to helping frontline workers and their families save on everyday spending. When Inflexion backed the business in 2022, the joint focus was on supporting a smooth founder succession and accelerating growth without diluting its mission. 
 
A central part of that journey has been building the leadership team to match BLC's ambitions. The founding CEO and CTO stepped back in line with their wishes, and a new senior team was appointed, including a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer. These new hires, alongside existing tenured executives, ensured continuity while bringing in fresh expertise. A highly experienced Chair from Inflexion’s network also joined, reinforcing the company’s focus on consumer savings and digital excellence.

BLC also set its sights abroad. In late 2022, the company launched in Australia, seeing strong member growth and laying the foundations for further international expansion. 
 
Technology investment has been equally transformative. A major re-platforming modernised BLC’s systems, improving scalability and reliability. The upgraded app and website now offer more personalisation, driving higher engagement and greater savings for members. BLC has also embraced data as a core enabler, with teams moving from descriptive reporting to prescriptive insights to sharpen decision-making. 
 
Growth has been impressive. Membership has more than doubled to over 6 million by opening eligibility to new groups such as teachers and retirees, while expansion into categories such as grocery, travel and household essentials has made the platform more relevant to everyday life.  

The future is equally bright. “We don’t have a shortage of options; it’s about ensuring we sequence them effectively and focus on initiatives with the highest impact for our members,” explains CEO Alidad Moghaddam. 

Goat Agency

Inflexion backed the co-founders of influencer and social media marketing agency Goat in 2021.

Founded in 2015 by Arron Shepherd, Nick Cooke and Harry Hugo, Goat specialises in data-led, end-to-end influencer marketing campaigns grounded in performance and measurement. Goat drives authentic brand engagement while integrating targeted paid media to reach the right audience and achieve industry-leading results. The company's 150+ staff across three global offices at the time of sale (400 now) have helped grow some of the biggest brands in the world, including Dell, Beiersdorf, Meta, Tesco, Uber, EA, Natura and Augustinus Bader, delivering best-in-class social and influencer campaigns. Between its founding and sale to WPP, Goat had tracked the performance of over 50,000 influencer channels and over 250,000 pieces of content – this had doubled to 100,000 influencers and 500,000 pieces of content at the time of exit.

Over the years, Adweek has recognised Goat as Europe's fastest-growing agency, while The Drum awarded it Social Media Agency of the Year and LinkedIn named it one of its top companies.

Inflexion’s significant minority investment supported the business in expanding globally, with a core focus on the North American market. Inflexion’s Digital team worked closely with management throughout the two-year investment period to embed technology and data into Goat’s proposition. Headcount grew substantially as Inflexion and management invested in Goat’s cost base to support rapid growth.  

In 2023, after EBITDA and US revenues more than tripled, Goat was sold to WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications company.

“Inflexion offered us tremendous support as we scaled the business in the UK and internationally. In particular, their knowledge of the US market and strong digital capabilities added significant value to the business. We delivered rapid international growth, and are delighted with what we achieved together,” Arron Shepherd, Co-Founder of Goat, said at the time of the sale. 

Lintbells

Passion and science underpin the success of Lintbells, which created the UK’s leading joint supplement for pets. The company was established in 2006 by two friends, one of whose labrador had slowed down following an operation for a slipped disc. The other, Dr. John Howie, had worked in the human food industry before switching to pet, where he discovered that many scientifically backed ingredients were difficult to incorporate into pet food as manufacturing processes often degraded them. He and his fellow co-founder, John Davies, combined their experience to create a brand-new formulation, proving its efficacy on the pet labrador, and it went on to become the preferred choice in the UK for pets with joint-related mobility issues.

In 2017 Inflexion backed the growing business. Together they advanced Lintbells’ US strategy, both organically and through the acquisition of Walkin’ Pets, which broadened the product range and accelerated market entry. At the same time, investment in digital infrastructure and marketing saw direct-to-consumer sales increase from around 5% to over 50% at exit. The strong efficacy of its flagship YuMove product underpinned high customer lifetime value and sustained growth. 

The leadership team was strengthened early in the investment period, with Fiona Hope brought on board as Chief Commercial Officer. She later became CEO to support the planned founder transition and continue scaling the organisation.

Inflexion also supported the formalisation of sustainability initiatives, culminating in B Corp certification in 2024. The business was sold to Vetnique the same year, delivering a 5.5x return for Inflexion’s investors.

Medik8

Medik8, the premium science-led skincare brand founded in 2009 by British scientist Elliot Isaacs, has undergone a remarkable transformation since partnering with Inflexion in 2021. In just over four years, Medik8 more than quadrupled its sales, tripled its headcount, expanded significantly in the US and Asia-Pacific, and developed into a market-leading, digitally led business.

At the time of the investment, Medik8 was a fully vertically integrated, high-margin, fast-growing brand with strong international potential. Inflexion and founder Elliot Isaacs agreed an ambitious plan for the company: scaling digital to boost D2C sales, accelerating US expansion, and facilitating Elliot’s own planned succession. Alongside this, it would be crucial to maintain the company's focus on sustainability and embed it more deeply.

The reorganisation aligned the CEO role more precisely with global objectives while creating dedicated resources for D2C and data initiatives – both critical growth areas. Targeted C-suite appointments filled capability gaps required for the ambitious plans, with two additional sales leaders brought on board to accelerate commercial growth.

Recognising the strategic importance of the US, Medik8 recruited a US Chair with digital expertise in the skincare segment. This appointment built credibility in the market and helped attract top digital talent.

The company further refined its structure by splitting certain global roles to sharpen focus on specific markets, particularly for the Asia-Pacific and US regions. This allowed teams to develop strategies better aligned with the dynamics of each geography.

Alongside this redesign, Medik8 invested heavily in digital capabilities, adding approximately 75 new roles focused on digital, product innovation and systems infrastructure in 2022 alone. The company completed a comprehensive systems overhaul in 2023 to support its ambitious growth plans. Medik8 also maintained a keen eye on sustainability throughout, achieving B Corp certification in 2024.

The impact of Inflexion’s value acceleration team was significant across all areas: digitising operations, upgrading systems, reshaping talent strategy and scaling D2C. The business continued to grow revenue at 40% year-on-year while maintaining EBITDA margins above 30%. Sophisticated data modelling, process scoping and technical hiring support enabled Medik8 to make high-confidence decisions quickly.

In June 2025, L’Oréal agreed to acquire a majority stake in Medik8, with Inflexion retaining a minority holding. The partnership with the global beauty leader will allow Medik8 to deepen its presence in existing markets and continue its global expansion.