The Bradery’s Edouard Caraco: “Either we would regain 100% ownership, or we would sell our entire stake” Clutch Fire

The Bradery has returned to independence. After three years within the Showroomprivé group, the private-sales platform for premium brands and experiences has been reacquired in full by its founders, Edouard Caraco and Timothée Linyer. On December 22, Showroomprivé announced it had sold its 52.75% stake in the company for €19 million, a deal accompanied by additional terms and performance-related earn-outs for the Parisian gem. This brings fresh performance pressure for The Bradery. Edouard Caraco shares with FashionNetwork.com the background to this takeover, his vision for the company’s development- underpinned by the app’s performance- and the founding duo’s plans in the luxury sector.

FashionNetwork.com: Showroomprivé has officially confirmed that it has sold its majority stake in The Bradery to you. When did you start negotiating this takeover, given that the group’s initial plan was to acquire 100% of the capital? What were the main points of discussion, given the group’s financial challenges?

Edouard Caraco: The takeover stemmed from several factors. For me, the key was that Tim (co-founder Timothée Linyer) and I were convinced of the market’s potential. We spent a great deal of time over the past year preparing the project, and that really drove the discussions. We felt as though we were letting go of our baby, even though we were only at the beginning of what we were capable of achieving. Reacquiring The Bradery is about taking a long-term view. I think that when we ceded the majority stake, we were also less mature. We were in a rush about everything. I still like to move fast, but I now see that continuity is a very positive virtue in an economic environment that can be unstable. That’s what we offer our partner brands, our customers, and our team.

FNW: Yes, but why did you give up the majority stake when Showroomprivé came in?

EC: When Showroomprivé came in, it was the end of the Covid period. We had experienced a very strong surge after our launch, and we didn’t really know whether we had been propelled by the online consumption boom of that period or whether we had the opportunity to build a longer-term business. And, as I said, we were young and in a hurry. Since then, the company has continued to grow strongly. Tim and I have been friends since we were 10. We feel incredibly fortunate to have a company that performs, that’s growing, with an amazing team, and where we both enjoy coming to work every day.

FNW: How are you financing this share buyback? It’s a substantial sum, so did you bring in new partners?

EC: We wanted to take back 100% of the company. We had no desire to change shareholders, either now or in the medium term. For us, the deal was clear: either we regained 100% of the capital by financing the acquisition with debt, or we saw through the initial agreement and sold 100% of our shares. Our banks supported us- they were brilliant on the project- so it was possible.

FNW: The agreement also includes a vendor loan of three million euros. Between your repayments and the commitments to the Showroomprivé group, doesn’t this put a lot of pressure on the company’s profitability over the next few years?

EC: The Bradery is a fast-growing company. And of course we must maintain the level of profitability that stems from the teams’ work. But we based our plan on the level we have today.

FNW: In your results filed for 2024, you mention a net profit of over €4 million on turnover of €62 million. What are your 2025 results?

EC: Showroomprivé is a consolidated, listed group, so I’m not going to comment on the figures. What I can say is that we recorded strong double-digit growth in 2025. And if we maintain our profitability for 10 years, we’ll have no problem repaying the debt.

FNW: That’s the financial part. But leaving a group also implies adjustments. What reorganisation and process changes are you going to have to implement?

EC: This was really the point that prompted us to pursue the buyback. We have kept our team- even as we grew from 40 to 70 people- our model, our premises and our processes. And Tim and I have remained very hands-on at The Bradery. I look after sales and Tim handles marketing. We knew there would be no friction. And honestly, if it had taken six months to transform the company, I don’t think we would have wanted to go for it. I believe this also influenced Showroomprivé’s management in their decision. In our absence, it would have required a significant implementation effort. We use Shopify for our CMS and we hadn’t migrated to Showroomprivé’s internal processes. The only area where we benefited from their clout was logistics. But we have strong relationships with our carriers.

An app at the heart of the model

FNW: Since 2022, you’ve significantly increased the number of The Bradery’s operations and opened new verticals such as travel- as Showroomprivé also did.

EC: We have grown very independently. Historically, The Bradery is a private-sales player in premium ready-to-wear. But today we’ve built an offering that very much meets the expectations of the audience we want to appeal to: young women aged 25–35 who are looking for premium offers. She wants to find fashion on the platform, but she also wants experiences. That’s why we’ve developed offers for gyms, travel, and concerts. We want to become the shopping destination for this generation. In this respect, we have developed our own processes. What Showroomprivé clearly gave us is ambition. They taught us to plan ahead. We’re much smaller, more niche and more selective in our offering.

FNW: What growth drivers are you considering?

EC: We have several important priorities. Internationalising the business is one of them. We only generate 5% of our sales from exports, concentrated in the Benelux countries and Spain- and mainly in Belgium. So we need to develop a real strategy for our presence in neighbouring countries. We’re going to organise ourselves to reach the Benelux countries, Spain, and Italy. This means proposing an offer that appeals to local customers, with a relevant offer for each country. If you think you’ll succeed just by translating the site, you’re deluding yourself. Entrepreneurial success is about the people you manage to bring together.

FNW: You’ve diversified your offering, but what share does fashion still represent?

EC: It’s not the fastest-growing vertical; we’ve seen particularly strong growth in beauty and home. But it remains the largest part of our business.

FNW: And how have you maintained its attractiveness as you’ve expanded your offer, given that initially exclusivity also came from a limited number of operations?

EC: It’s a topic we’ve worked on extensively to improve the customer experience. To that end, we’ve moved from an online strategy to an app-first strategy. Of course, we still have a website, with a new version going live in the first half of this year. But we’ve invested heavily in the app, with the aim of building daily habits for our customers. They log on every morning to discover the latest offers. And we now generate 70% of our sales via the app.

FNW: Successful app launches are rare. What’s your formula?

EC: The data show that customers using the app are more engaged than site visitors. They come back more often and purchase more frequently. We’ve hired specialists to improve the experience and encourage repeat visits by personalising the journey as much as possible and making the purchasing process as easy as possible. Buying via the app is as simple as ordering an Uber. And as we’ve grown, we’ve reworked customer service and logistics… We’ve raised our game.

FNW: And how do you manage to generate profitable growth at a time when consumer spending is struggling and digital performance has been more challenging in recent seasons?

EC: Across all operations, we work with brands, but we take a prudent, common-sense approach to generating profitability. We’re still very modest in size and very humble about the global context. I look at what Veepee and Showroomprivé have achieved with a lot of admiration, and I hope we’ll be their size one day. Simply maintaining their level of activity at such scale already seems a success to me. Beyond that, I believe that, in the current context, our size gives us the agility to be responsive and opportunistic, and to set up operations very quickly- with brands- in 48–72 hours. I see that as a competitive advantage. Incidentally, another growth lever for The Bradery is physical sales.

FNW: Why, when your expertise is online?

EC: We started in December and it worked very well. We’ve worked with Maison Kitsuné, Levi’s, Drôle de Monsieur… I think a lot of brands understand that digital and physical complement each other. And there’s a shift back to physical retail, particularly among customers looking for premium offers. Our customers expect it. But it’s also important to remember that we’re obsessed with profitability. We’re always balancing the provision of solutions for partners with keeping the books in order. So for physical operations, we’re taking a pop-up approach to control our investments. And we’re going to continue like this in 2026, managing it on a variable-cost basis, with two to three operations per month.

Luxury as a growth driver

FNW: Are you planning to launch other verticals?

EC: With Tim, the takeover project has taken up 25% to 30% of our time for months now. We’re going to devote that time to developing the business. We have big ambitions for The Bradery. The major focus for us is luxury. To address this, we’ve launched a platform called Première for luxury brands, enabling them to run white-label operations.

FNW: What does that mean?

EC: It means they don’t appear on The Bradery. We organise discreet digital or physical operations for the houses so they can sell down their stock while benefiting from tightly controlled exposure. Brands select, from their customer base and ours, the clients they want to target according to very precise criteria. Those customers receive a personal invitation. For our part, we create a site in the brand’s colours specifically for the occasion.

FNW: And what can this new activity represent?

EC: Given the very positive response from brands to the four operations carried out at the end of the year, we’re very ambitious. It’s highly selective, but conversion rates are strong and, inevitably, average order values are very attractive.

FNW: With these various projects, what is your five-year roadmap?

EC: The plan is to continue accelerating growth, with double-digit increases every year. But we don’t want to set any limits. We really feel we’re at the beginning of the journey.