New brands to pitch for Arnotts opportunity

Startups invited to Pitch’21 initiative with chance of winning €10,000 development fund

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Brown Thomas Arnotts’ director of innovation, experience and enterprise, Audrey Owens said the Pitch'21 initiative could be 'a gamechanger for a brand'. Picture by Conor McCabe.

Fearghal O'Connor

April 11 2021 02:30 AM

Brown Thomas Arnotts is to take pitches from Irish startup companies and promising new brands who want an opportunity to retail at Arnotts in Dublin’s Henry Street.

The new initiative – Pitch’21 – also comes with the chance of winning a €10,000 business development fund.

The aim of the initiative is to support Irish designers, makers and entrepreneurs across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, home and technology who already have a product or range developed. The retailer says it will help grow the winner’s brand further and offer mentoring and expertise.

Speaking about Pitch’21, Brown Thomas Arnotts’ director of innovation, experience and enterprise, Audrey Owens said it wanted to support local and Irish businesses and brands.

“We’re thrilled to take this even further with the launch of Pitch’21 at Arnotts,” she said. “Despite this past year being a challenging one for businesses, it has also afforded new opportunities for innovative ideas and startup companies to flourish.”

Owens says that successful entry into the initiative could be “a gamechanger for a brand”.

It had been a challenging year for retail but there was still a bright future for innovative brands, she said.

“We have pop-ups that have started off in the store for a few weeks and have ended up as permanent installations and are now really, really successful within their area,” she said.

The idea for Pitch’21 came about during the Christmas retail season when Brown Thomas Arnotts was seeking new Irish brands as part of its gift offering.

“We were going out looking at activations to come in and were working with companies and realised in some cases they had an amazing idea, but actually, in terms of trying to bring it into a retail environment there were issues with the retail concepts and issues with fulfillment or maybe packaging. But by working with them on this we felt we really made a difference.”