When Grace Beverley’s activewear brand TALA reported revenue growth of 19% to £19.8m alongside an operating loss of £2.6m, the headlines were predictable. Losses widened. Profitability delayed. Expansion questioned. Yet, this framing reveals a deeper issue in how modern brand-building is discussed in Britain and risks undermining the very businesses capable of defining the next generation of British consumer brands.
The problem with headline “losses”
The conversation around TALA highlights a growing issue in UK business coverage. Venture-backed brands, particularly those that are founder- or creator-led, are increasingly judged through a narrow profit-and-loss lens that fails to reflect how modern consumer businesses scale.
What is often presented as financial distress is, in reality, calculated capital deployment: investing in market share, infrastructure, and long-term brand equity rather than extracting short-term profit. When losses are reported without context, they distort how scale-ups are evaluated and how ambition is perceived.
What the numbers actually show
Look beyond the headline and the picture changes. TALA maintained a 58% gross margin while completing a ÂŁ5m Series B funding round. The business opened flagship stores in Carnaby Street and Westfield London, expanded wholesale partnerships with retailers such as Anthropologie and navigated the complexity of US tariffs.
These are not the decisions of a failing business. They reflect deliberate choices about where and when to invest. Yet media narratives too often focus on losses in isolation, rather than asking the more meaningful question: what is this business building, and why now?
A digital marketing lens on growth-stage finance
From a digital marketing perspective, the signals are clear. TALA is converting brand awareness into infrastructure.
Physical retail creates high-impact offline touchpoints that deepen customer relationships and reduce long-term customer acquisition costs. Wholesale partnerships extend distribution and credibility beyond owned channels; Drapers reports that TALA’s wholesale revenues grew eightfold year-on-year.
Even the much-scrutinised US expansion, despite tariff headwinds, placed the brand in the world’s largest activewear market. At TALA’s current scale, even modest percentage growth represents meaningful revenue. This is textbook market-share capture strategy, not financial mismanagement.
Why this matters now
The timing of this debate is critical. UK venture capital deal volumes reportedly fell by around 13% in 2025, with overall funding declining by approximately 17%. British brands, therefore, face a narrowing window to establish defensible market positions before international competitors with deeper pockets and longer time horizons pull further ahead.
Grace Beverley’s transparent response to coverage around TALA’s financials has opened a necessary conversation about how modern brand-building is judged. The business is growing revenue, maintaining healthy margins, securing institutional backing, expanding distribution and investing in long-term infrastructure. That these decisions generate operating losses during a growth phase is neither surprising nor concerning; it is strategic.
If Britain wants to produce globally competitive consumer brands, it must recognise that building them takes capital, time and strategic boldness. The alternative is a generation of under-capitalised, under-ambitious businesses that play it safe and ultimately lose to those that didn’t.
About CEEK:
CEEK Marketing is an omnichannel digital marketing agency dedicated to assisting brands in amplifying their digital presence. CEEK has a passion for start-ups & helping big companies act like start-ups, with an outsourced marketing solution for businesses of all sizes.
CEEK entered the digital marketing space as hospitality experts, initially collaborating with leading establishments in the restaurant and hotel sectors throughout the UK and Europe. We still love hospitality marketing, but have since broadened our industry expertise, now working with the “Best Brands In Each Sector”.
Charlie Terry – Founder, CEEK Marketing
Charlie Terry grew up in Brighton, the son of a French polisher who literally built the furniture for his first office. A former England U19 rugby prospect, Charlie was on track to sign with Bath before injury changed his path, redirecting his competitive drive into business.
By 19, he was in New York launching a head-hunting office, and soon after returned home to build one of the South Coast’s most successful nightlife networks, running more than 60 events a week. A few years later, he pivoted again, founding a luxury hospitality recruitment company that grew to £40 million turnover.
That same entrepreneurial mindset led him to create CEEK Marketing, now one of the UK’s fastest-growing omnichannel and AI-driven marketing agencies.
Charlie can speak about his journey from sport to serial entrepreneurship, the decision to skip both rugby and university to build his own ventures, and how those early lessons shaped his leadership today. He’s also well-placed to discuss how COVID accelerated the pivot to e-commerce, and the next frontier of AI visibility, where human creativity meets algorithmic decision-making.
