Hurr reaches profitability for first time as rental and resale marketplace grows

UK fashion rental platform Hurr has reached profitability for the first time, according to chief executive officer Lauren Roberts, who announced the milestone in a LinkedIn post.

Roberts said the business had spent the past 18 months reviewing its operations, spending, innovation and product development, with a series of changes helping to improve its financial performance.

“Getting here has been anything but glamorous. There have been difficult decisions, plenty of things that haven't worked, and an almost obsessive amount of attention paid to the smallest details of the business,” she wrote.

For the London-based company, the announcement is a significant development since its founding in 2017 by Victoria Prew as a peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace. Hurr has since expanded its business by adding resale to its offering and through partnerships with more than 130 premium brands and retailers, including Selfridges, John Lewis and Net-a-Porter.

The company has also secured around 10 million dollars in venture capital funding, including a 7.9 million pound round announced in 2023.

Roberts, who joined Hurr in 2021, became chief executive in 2024, succeeding Prew, who stepped down from day-to-day leadership to pursue a new venture. Before her appointment, Roberts held senior strategy roles at Selfridges Group and worked at Boston Consulting Group.

In her update, Roberts said Hurr's marketplace was continuing to grow, with more consumers renting from one another and resale becoming an increasingly important part of the business. The platform has also introduced features including image-based search and item requests.

She added: "But for me, the significance of reaching profitability goes beyond Hurr. If we're going to change how people consume fashion, circular business models need to make commercial sense too. We're under no illusion that the work is finished. But this feels like a pretty exciting step forward, both for Hurr and for what we're trying to build."