Is Atterley planning to go public?

New York - The Scottish fashion business has recently secured a multi-million investment from fashion conglomerate PDS Multinational. When breaking the news to the industry, Atterley’s founder Mike Welch, left the door open to a potential float of the company.

Market sources point out that Atterley follows a similar business model to Farfetch, which was valued at 6.2 billion dollars on its New York Stock Exchange- IPO last month. “If there is a value precedent being set in the market then we wouldn’t rule out a float of our own, all options remain open to us and we own enough of our equity to determine our destiny,” admitted Welch in an interview with British media in early October regarding the company’s future.

As reported by the ‘Scotsman’, Welch further went on saying that “We are not going down the road of what I would describe as ‘spraying and praying’ with investors’ money, but we will be learning from those who have gone before and fully expect to prove our model in financial terms, sooner rather than later.

It is noteworthy that fashion sales in the UK are forecast to generate more than 18 billion pounds and account for almost a third of all online spending by 2020.

Atterley enables independent fashion boutiques and brands to list and sell their inventories, with more than 100 boutiques on its platform selling to some 80 countries. It has recently launched image search artificial intelligence technology that allows online shoppers to search for items by uploading photos.

Earlier this year, when the fashion company shared their plans to raise additional funding, Kenny Baillie, chief operating officer of Atterley, advanced their strategy: “By assembling a network of some of the best independent boutiques under the Atterley brand, the site creates economies of scale in product range, marketing and distribution costs that makes online more viable for boutique partners, many of whom had previously found it challenging to operate on the web.”

Furthermore, Atterley believes there is room for its offering to bring independent fashion "to a wider demographic than some of the more exclusive market participants".