Pace x Mulberry

Posted on September 3, 2020. Filed under: Uncategorized |

Today one of our portfolio companies at Pace announced their Series A financing. I’ve been waiting to talk about Mulberry since we invested in March, and now I finally can! Currently, Mulberry delivers product insurance and warranty coverage via an API at the point of sale through e-commerce and D2C channels. Whereas a company like Affirm distributes credit through these channels at the point of sale, Mulberry similarly distributes insurance. For E-Commerce sites, Mulberry empowers them to offer an Apple Care-like experience to their end customers, while simultaneously dropping meaningful margin to their own bottom line. For consumers, Mulberry lets you protect the purchases you value, whether it be your Mirror fitness equipment or your Breville espresso maker, both of whom are amongst a wide set of brands with whom Mulberry has partnered. There is a real elegance to Mulberry’s model and the company has clearly found product/market fit, but the real story with Mulberry is the team. At the helm is one of the strongest CEOs I’ve ever worked with in my decade plus in venture. Chinedu’s story is kind of nuts. He grew up in Nigeria, his parents won the visa lottery and they moved here when he was 11. At 16 he went to Cornell, where he graduated early and immediately cofounded a fintech company called Zibby. He scaled into the CTO role there despite not having focused on computer science in school. Zibby has built 9 figures worth of enterprise value and is still going strong. I’ve had the pleasure in serving on Mulberry’s board since March and have been blown away by the quality and character of Chinedu, his three co-founders (Lee, Ashley, and Ali), and the broader leadership team at the company. We’ve recently leveled up leadership across a number of key functions within the company, and I’d say the unifying theme amongst the entire leadership team is a deep motivation to practice their respective crafts at the highest level. Mulberry has executed through COVID beautifully, experiencing tailwinds on a number of fronts while addressing headwinds confidently and thoughtfully. The company has grown meaningfully since we made our initial investment, and is on track to have a great year. This is not a company you join for the quick flip. The team is extremely long term in their orientation, and I believe Mulberry will be a public company one day, albeit not for quite some time. We’re actively looking to bring on a VP Marketing, as well as some consumer product DNA to lead an exciting new business line that has the potential to transform the company. I’m in it for the long haul here, and would love to work closely with you if you’re interested in joining this special organization and team. Pace led Mulberry’s Series A alongside returning investors like Founder Collective and Quiet Capital and we were fortunate to bring in a few amazing strategic angels like Jack Chou (Former CPO at Affirm and Pinterest) and Jeff Weinstein (Product at Stripe). If you’d like to learn more about Mulberry, hit me up: jordan@pacecapital.com.