Kapten & Son gets investor for the first time

The Cologne-based start-up financed itself for six years. Now the French investment company Ardian Growth has become a minority shareholder.

The start-up Kapten & Son has so far self-financed the development and expansion of its own eyewear business. Now the company has brought an investor on board for the first time: French investment company Ardian Growth has become a minority shareholder in Kapten & Son, although the amount of the investment is not known.

The start-up intends to use the money to expand into other European countries and develop new products. In addition to eyewear, Kapten & Son currently offers a further 500 products online and in seven stores in Germany.

Kapten & Son was founded in 2014 by Fabian Deventer, Johannes Theobald and Artjem Weissbeck at the University of Münster. The plan was a small store for friends, but today it has grown into a company with 150 employees. According to the company, turnover rose by 60 percent last year to over 50 million euros.

Ardian Growth is not the first investor to want to get involved, but it was the first to convince the founders. "Now, however, we have found an ideal partner in Ardian Growth, which has already demonstrated its high ambitions and long-term perspective with other companies. They know the European market and the e-commerce landscape down to the smallest detail and do so in a very data-driven way," explains co-founder Weissbeck.

This is Ardian Growth's first investment in a German company. The investment company sees great potential in the Cologne-based start-up: "As one of the leading e-commerce companies of the new generation, Kapten & Son has all the prerequisites to continue growing in the structurally profitable online market," says Romain Chiudini, Director of Ardian Growth.