Shaftesbury has officially announced Danish lifestyle brand and e-bike retailer, MATE, which has now launched in Seven Dials for its first UK store on 72 Neal Street.
Spanning two floors and totalling 2,096 sq ft, MATE Seven Dials represents the brand’s first bricks-and-mortar site in the UK and stocks its full collection of sleek, foldable, and practical e-bikes in several colourways. The Seven Dials store provides an engaging and integrated retail experience, offering test rides that allow visitors to trial the high-performance e-bikes. The new space, designed to be an experiential store, also showcases MATE’s exclusive retail collaborations, including CR x MATE and a capsule wardrobe with Palm Angels, synergising high-fashion with high-performance.
The launch of MATE is aligned with the destinations focus on sustainable retailers and providing visitors with an alternative electric form of transport whilst moving around the city. The importance of the sustainability ethos is also reflected in the number of brands in the Seven Dials community who are now ‘Certified B’ Corps, a new kind of business and certification under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set up by the United Nations over the next 10 years.
Samantha Bain-Mollison, Retail Director at Shaftesbury, said: “MATE is an on-trend emerging brand, with an intrinsic link to sustainability, making it a natural fit for Seven Dials. For brands looking to establish a UK presence, Seven Dials presents the perfect destination to make their mark and MATE is an excellent example of this. Surrounded by other independent retailers, including Neal Street’s VIVOBAREFOOT and Route One, it is the ideal location for MATE, and we’re excited to work with the brand as they extend their offering to the UK customer base.”
Matt Rudd, Head of Retail at MATE, added: “We are delighted to be in the UK and at Seven Dials. The opening of our store is a milestone for our business, and it is our ambition to combine both innovation and personal expression in a new form. We want to imagine better, more convenient ways to travel and create new models that are enriched with smarter tech and enhanced flexibility.”
Based in Copenhagen, MATE was founded in 2016 to make e-biking more fun with its unique design. MATE started a biking revolution that made e-bikes cool and made the daily commute enjoyable. Thereafter, the e-bike brand has become one of the most successful European crowdfunding campaigns due to massive consumer interest. It gained the unique lifestyle brand a loyal community, with MATE’s UK debut in Seven Dials representing part of the brand’s ambitious expansion plans.