SoCal Footwear Brand Clearweather Secures New Funding, Ramps Up Growth Plans as It Turns 10

Just months away from its 10-year anniversary, Southern California-based footwear brand Clearweather is ready to accelerate its business after a recent round of investment.

While details of the investment are undisclosed, Clearweather cofounder Brandon Brubaker confirmed in an exclusive interview with FN that the round was in the seven figures. “With this new investment, we are really building the backbone of the company to be even stronger than ever,” Brubaker told FN. “This is something we needed to do to really set us up for the next level.”

More specifically, the company is set to use the money to build out its team, invest in infrastructure – like relocating its warehouse and launching a new website with the latest technology – and streamlining its fulfillment and operations.

The funding round, which closed earlier this year, was led by former tech chief executive officer Ed Boyajian. After leading his company EnterpriseDB for the past 15 years – with 55 consecutive quarters of growth and acquisition by Bain Capital – Boyajian is bringing his operational expertise to Clearweather as an advisor, Brubaker noted.

“Ed is super involved,” Brubaker said. “He’s helped out a lot on getting the foundational structure in order from a financial standpoint and from a recording and data analytics standpoint. It’s really helping us.”

Along with Boyajian, Christopher Pepe, the former senior footwear buyer at Barneys New York, joined the company as partner earlier this year. According to Pepe, he focuses on the business strategy side of the company, helping out with merchandising and inventory planning.

“I’m using my retail background to help with organizing the backend, and figuring out what voids we need to fill from a business standpoint as well as from a product standpoint,” Pepe told FN.

Now with a larger team in place, Clearweather is aiming to grow around 50 percent in 2025, according to Pepe. The company is accelerating year-over-year growth and investing heavily in analytics to ensure optimal decision-making that will serve the brand’s customers and grow its business.

Pepe and Brubaker also said they are hiring distributors in Europe and Asia to help expand their network abroad. Brubaker noted that Clearweather is currently 95 percent direct-to-consumer, with a select group of wholesale accounts in the U.S. that have been with them for years. But, with these new international distributors, the aim is to focus more on wholesale abroad.

“We need those relationships to ship internationally,” Pepe noted. “So to be able to have a warehouse in the European Union and in Asia, as well as accounts there, it will help us serve our customer better. It also has a cost savings on the backend since we don’t have to ship things straight from the U.S. and pay double duties. It all goes back to infrastructure, which was the focus of this most recent round of investment.”

Bottom line, Brubaker, who cofounded the brand with his brother Josh Brubaker in December 2014, it’s all about growing into the next 10 years. “I can’t even believe it’s been 10 years already,” he reflected. “I mean, the future is just going to be more adventures with people that I completely love being around and would probably be around anyway, even if we didn’t have a company together. I guess that’s the point.”