Fix the route to market, then raise the money: what Mamas & Papas got in the right order
Mamas & Papas has completed a refinancing, with existing investor Bluegem Capital Partners reinvesting alongside new investors including Cheyne Capital. It follows a strong year: in the twelve months to 30th March 2026 the business turned over £170m, up 4%, with EBITDA of £14.5m, up 21%. Steve Parkin, the Huddersfield company's executive chairman, said the refinancing is "a vote of confidence in our strategy, performance, market leadership and forward potential, and provides a strengthened capital structure to support the execution of that strategy". It is a placed announcement and the framing is theirs, but the figures are real and they are worth reading properly, because the lesson for your route to market is in the sequence rather than the sum.
They fixed the channel first. They let the trading numbers prove the model. Then they raised money from a position of strength. Most brands in difficulty do precisely the reverse: they raise against a plan, then try to build the route with somebody else's money and somebody else's timetable. One of those is a vote of confidence. The other is a rescue, and the difference between them is almost entirely about what you do before you pick up the phone to an investor. If your route to market is not working yet, funding will not fix it. It will just let you run the same problem for longer at a higher burn.
The part I find genuinely under-used in our industry is the concession, and I am not the only one who has been thinking about it. Paul Brooks, an independent retail consultant whose reading of this I rate, wrote a piece on the rebuild that is worth your time (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7496554688104960000/). He describes Mamas & Papas moving into other people's stores, "borrowing their locations and footfall, while bringing its own specialist product, knowledge and brand". That is the whole model in a sentence. Nursery is a high-consideration, low-frequency purchase. A parent wants to push the pram before they spend £900 on it, but they will only do that once every few years. Carrying a full store estate to serve a purchase that infrequent is punishing maths, and it is roughly the maths that took this business into administration in 2019. Borrowed footfall keeps the touch-and-feel that actually closes the sale, without paying rent for the fifty-one weeks a year when nobody walks past. Mamas & Papas now sells in more than thirty countries through concession, franchise and independent partners, and it is the same playbook repeated across borders.
Paul makes one further observation that I think is the real lesson, and it is easy to miss. Mamas & Papas has not tried to recreate the business it had before administration. Fewer assumptions about what a store network ought to look like, more partnerships, more ways of reaching the customer. Most businesses coming out of administration try to rebuild the exact thing that broke, which is completely understandable and usually fatal. This one did not, and seven years on, £170m of revenue suggests the rebuild is working. You do not need your own store to be seen in a store, and you do not need the business you used to have in order to build a better one.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is a retail concession?
A concession is a branded space inside somebody else's store, where you keep control of the product, the visual merchandising and often the staff, and the host retailer takes an agreed share of the sales. You get physical presence, footfall and the ability to let a customer touch the product, without signing a lease or carrying the fixed costs of your own store estate.
Why do concessions suit maternity, baby and nursery brands so well?
Because the category is high-consideration and low-frequency. Prams, cots, car seats and feeding equipment are researched carefully and bought rarely, and most parents want to see and handle them before committing. That combination makes a standalone store hard to justify commercially but makes physical presence close to essential. A concession resolves the tension: you get the touch-and-feel moment inside a retailer the customer already visits.
When should a brand raise investment?
Ideally once the route to market is working and the numbers show it. Raising from strength gives you better terms, better investors and control over the timetable. Raising to fund a channel you have not yet proved means borrowing against a hypothesis, and it puts somebody else's expectations on a plan that has not been tested. Prove the model at a small scale first, then raise to accelerate what already works.
If you are weighing up a concession, a franchise partner or a new channel and want a view on whether it fits your brand, that is what we do at The Nest. Come and have a conversation before you sign anything.
The Nest News lands every Tuesday: three insights shaping maternity, baby and children's products, and the actions you can take. Sign up at https://www.thenest.uk.com/the-nest-news-signup
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