Luxury fashion gaming platform, Drest, has secured an investment of £15m of funding to continue the development of its new product proposition, Drest Game 2.0. Since its launch in 2019, Drest has recorded 250 per cent year-on-year user growth, raised £30m, and worked directly with over 260 brands, including Breitling, Cartier, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Gucci, Prada and Valentino.

Drest said the funds will support its evolution across gaming, media, data and eCommerce, as the company prepares to roll-out globally a highly improved, metaverse-enabled version of its current product, which will include a series of new features, with the aim of becoming the leading creative platform for fashion, entertainment and lifestyle gamification.

Further plans include scaling Drest through the developer ecosystem, marketing channels and strategic revenue streams, as well as building on the user base growth experienced by the platform. Additional games within the web3 and lifestyle space are being explored and Drest will enter into a research & development phase over the next 18 months.

The investment comes at a time when, according to NewZoo, mobile gaming revenues reached $92.2bn in 2022, accounting for 50 per cent of the $184.4bn global gaming market. NewZoo estimates that the global gaming market will be worth $221 billion.

Drest merges the creative worlds of luxury fashion, beauty and lifestyle with the metaverse, offering players the chance to exhibit and improve their styling talent using the latest luxury fashion and beauty collections to style hyper-realistic avatars. Through its in-game challenges, Drest is a platform for user-generated content, with the digital fashion assortment provided by Farfetch, as well as brands directly, allowing players to easily discover, style and shop the latest collections. Drest combines gamification with brand marketing and partnership opportunities, enabling its stakeholders to access and interact with new and highly-engaged audiences.

“We are thrilled to have secured investment to help us scale Drest, especially in such a tough market,” said Drest CEO, Lisa Bridgett. “This is testament to the strength of our product delivery and pipeline of ideas. We are now ready to take the business to the next level, and offer a new one-of-a-kind experience to our users while maintaining the core elements of the game. There is an undeniable interest in gaming from the luxury fashion and lifestyle industries and we are very well positioned to cater to this increasing demand. We very much look forward to the next chapter.”