LUCKY SAINT
First Backed 2019
About Rianta Capital
WHO ARE RIANTA
In 1969, Tom Singh borrowed £5,000 from his parents and opened a single fashion store in Taunton, Somerset. That store became New Look.
Over the following 5 decades, Tom grew it into one of the UK’s most recognised high-street retailers, with more than 850 stores worldwide, revenues exceeding £1 billion at its peak. He was appointed OBE in 2007 for services to the fashion industry.
POOLHOUSE
First Backed 2024
Tom is widely regarded as one of the most instinctive product minds of his generation: someone who understood what consumers wanted before they knew it themselves. Crucially, he never took the chief executive role at New Look. He always knew his strengths lay in product and brand, and he stayed in his lane. It remains a quality he looks for in every founder he backs today.
Since stepping back from New Look in 2019, Tom and the family have deployed some of that capital, experience, and network into the next generation of founders, backing over 100 businesses (60 of which are consumer led) across a decade of active investing. Rianta Capital is the investment advisor to Tom and his family.
What makes Rianta genuinely different is the breadth of perspective behind every decision. Alongside their direct portfolio, the family holds LP positions in a number of leading venture funds both in the UK and the US.
That exposure gives the team live visibility into where serious capital is moving, which categories are attracting real conviction, and what the next cycle of consumer behaviour looks like before it reaches the mainstream. Most investors see the market from inside one lens. Rianta sees it from across the landscape.
PENTIRE
First Backed 2020
Meet The Family
Singh Family
Tom Singh OBE
Tom founded New Look in 1969 and built it across 50 years into one of the UK’s most recognised consumer brands. He brings to Rianta a rare combination: the instinct of a founder who started from nothing, and the hard-won perspective of an operator who has navigated every stage of a consumer business. From a single store in Somerset to a billion-pound global retailer.
Anna Singh
Anna is a two-time consumer entrepreneur. She built and sold Pout, a cosmetics brand, and founded Chinti & Parker, the luxury cashmere and womenswear label. Her first-hand experience of building brand-led businesses across beauty and fashion gives her a perspective that is active, current, and directly relevant to the founders Rianta looks to back.
Richard Singh
Richard is the founder of Wax London, one of Britain’s most distinctive contemporary menswear brands. Still actively building, he brings an operator’s instinct to every investment conversation. The kind of judgement that only comes from being inside a growing brand right now.
Meet The Team
Investment Team
Ben Betancourt
Ben has spent the past decade leading the venture portfolio, working closely with portfolio companies post-investment, supporting founders on the strategic and operational questions that matter most in the years after the first cheque.
Geordie Hadden-Paton
Geordie manages the investment process from first meeting through to term sheet and is the primary point of contact for new and prospective portfolio companies.
Lily Irvine
Lily oversees the operational infrastructure of Rianta Ventures, managing administration, reporting, compliance, and the day-to-day processes that allow the investment team to focus on founders.
MOTH
First Backed 2021