BUSINESS NEWS
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INVESTMENT FOR CLOTHES DOCTOR Sustainable clothing care business, Clothes Doctor, has secured a £500k equity investment from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF).
CELTIC & CO BUYS FRUGI
The Truro-based business, which appeared on TV’s Dragons’ Den in 2019, secured the investment as part of a £1 million funding round led by appointed CIOSIF fund manager, The FSE Group. The round includes investment from start-up accelerator Founders Factory, Childs Farm founder and CEO, Joanna Jensen, and new
Celtic & Co parent company, Refined Brands, has bought Helston-based ethical childrenswear brand Frugi.
Frugi’s operations and head office team of around 100 will relocate to Celtic & Co’s base at Indian Queens. James Williams, group managing director of Refined Brands, said: “I’m delighted to be able to secure the future of this pioneering ethical childrenswear brand and save a significant number of local jobs in Cornwall. “We are delighted that Frugi are joining our brand family. We have long been fans of the Frugi brand and find their strong ethical and sustainable brand values resonate strongly with our own.”
and existing private investors. The funding will be used to employ an additional 14 members of staff over the next three years. Originally a service-focused clothing repair business, Clothes Doctor has evolved following high levels of demand, to create and supply eco-conscious laundry care products. Their premium detergents and other ranges are some of the very few products on the market that do not use palm oil or plastic and are plant/mineral derived. Founder Lulu O’Connor said: “We are delighted to be developing our business so that more people are able to use our vegan products to wash, repair and care for clothes, in the hopes that an undeniable and long-term difference will be made to the sustainability of the fashion sector.”
production for over a decade. It has developed Government granteligible systems for sealing slurry lagoons to capture methane that would otherwise escape to the atmosphere (called ‘fugitive methane’), then treating and compressing the gas for use as fuel.
The business, which was founded in 2004 by Kurt and Lucy Jewson and later sold to a private equity company in 2018, went into administration at the end of November. Refined Brands acquired the intellectual property and assets of the Frugi brand via a pre-pack administration deal, for an undisclosed sum.
CORNWALL
WORLD FIRST FOR CORNWALL A Cornish company pioneering the capture, storage and use of methane gas sourced from farm slurry has seen its groundbreaking technology incorporated into the world’s first liquid methanepowered tractor. Bennamann, based at the Aerohub Business Park near Newquay, has been researching and developing biomethane
The New Holland T7 Methane Power LNG was unveiled at a global CNH Industrial Tech Day event in the USA in December. Bennamann co-founder, Chris Mann, said: “The T7 liquid methane fuelled tractor is a genuine world-first and another step towards decarbonising the global agricultural industry and realising a circular economy.” Mark Duddridge, chair of the LEP, added: “Biomethane has huge potential. If we can make our agriculture industry energyindependent in the face of soaring input costs and volatile energy prices, while reducing emissions, then we can provide a huge economic boost for rural communities, greater food security, and move towards net zero.” BUSINESS CORNWALL | 7