CINDY CRAWFORD TAKES MINORITY STAKE IN COVETEUR

Via WWD

The Coveteur is getting a financial boost from none other than Cindy Crawford.

While already on the Canadian blog-turned lifestyle web site’s three-member advisory board (the others are Bobbi Brown and Prabal Gurung), this is Crawford’s first investment in the company and gives her a minority stake, but Coveteur would not disclose the exact amount.

The supermodel, who with her 3.3 million Instagram followers is having something of a career resurgence about a decade after she started her own skin-care line, cited her enjoyment of Coveteur, but also its being a “great business” as the reasoning for her investment.

“Their growth has been fantastic and I’m thrilled to be a small part of their next chapter,” Crawford said. “By investing in them, I hope to help them reach new global consumers who, like me, are passionate about discovering new products and the people behind them.”

Having started out in 2011 as a blog that took a look inside the closets of street style personalities and influencers, Coveteur has broadened its scope into essentially a lifestyle web site with coverage of beauty, fashion and wellness that’s heavy on product promotion for brands through editorial — a lucrative place to be.

Coveteur’s revenue has grown an average of more than 60 percent over the last three years, a period of time that’s also has brought in a new chief executive officer in Warren Webster, who had a stint as Goop’s chief operations officer after years as an AOL executive, and launched a creative agency to work directly with brands.

The site recently added an e-commerce aspect which is set to expand and offer even more collaborations and bring in more revenue. Although Crawford’s investment is not part of a formal funding round and is expected to be put toward an expansion of Coveteur’s e-commerce arm, the company is thinking about going a more formal route and some “preliminary conversations” are going on.

Webster noted the company has “grown immensely over the last couple of years” and said Crawford’s additional support comes as brand collaborations are set to monthly for e-commerce and an own brand for Coveteur “is on the horizon.”

“As great products and great content converge, there are few people as qualified to help guide us as Cindy Crawford,” Webster added. “She has an amazing viewpoint on style, culture and business.”

The last investments in Coventeur came in 2012 and the company referred to that as only a “small seed round” that included Toronto-based VC BrandProject and Drake.