Victoria Prew

In 2018 Prew founded the fashion rental platform HURR, at the age of 25. She has said she had always been fascinated by the sharing economy and, after watching the rise of platforms such as Airbnb and Uber, believed fashion would be the next industry to be disrupted; she also felt that the demand for “newness” created by fast fashion had no place in a sustainable future, and that the answer was “renting not buying.”⁠[1][2][1][1][3][3]

HURR launched in 2019, letting users either list their own clothes for rent or borrow other people’s. In the early days Prew visited lenders’ homes with a camera to photograph their clothes; the team later worked from Google’s startup campus and opened a pop-up in Selfridges, through which the department store trialled fashion rental for the first time.⁠[4][1][3][1]

In December 2021 HURR raised a $5.4 million seed round, about £4 million, led by the European venture capital firm Octopus Ventures, with participation from D4 Ventures and Ascension, among others. HURR then operated a hybrid model: peer-to-peer rentals between members, direct partnerships with more than 85 fashion brands, and a white-label rental service for retailers such as Selfridges Rental; it had a physical space in Selfridges London and that year partnered with the resale platform Depop.⁠[4][5][6][6]

Prew said at the time: “As a millennial, I’m part of a generation that loves shared ownership… if we can rent our houses and cars, why not our wardrobes.”⁠[4][4]

In June 2022 Prew, as co-founder and CEO of HURR, became the ambassador for the French fashion brand ba&sh’s “Blazers for Trailblazers” initiative, which raises funds for projects by women entrepreneurs.⁠[7]

In December 2023 the Manchester venture capital firm Praetura Ventures led a new funding round for HURR, bringing the total raised by HURR to £7.9 million.⁠[8][8]

In June 2024 Lauren Roberts, HURR’s chief operating officer, took over as chief executive, and Prew stepped away from the company’s day-to-day leadership to build a new company that is still in stealth. Discussing the handover later, Prew said: “Replacing myself was always the plan.”⁠[2][2][2][2]

As of April 2026, HURR had raised $10 million in venture capital and had partnerships with retailers including John Lewis, Net-a-Porter, and Selfridges and with more than 130 premium brands.⁠[2][2]

The Venture Room interviewed Prew on the street in Kensington, London. She said on the show that she started with about £10,000 in savings, moved back in with her parents at 25, and raised a first venture capital round of about £4 million the same year; she described HURR as “the Airbnb for fashion” and said the company reached an eight-figure valuation in its latest round.⁠[9][9][9][9]

She said she lives by the idea that “there’s no such word as no. It’s simply a not now,” and that every rejection pushes her to do things a bit better.⁠[9][9]

Rather than starting from scratch, buy a business that has been around for more than 30 years and modernize it with AI tools: new businesses have a high failure rate, and all you have to do is be 5% better than all of your competitors (at 12:34 in the video).⁠[9][9]

Fight for equity: it is very hard to get rich as an employee, so whether in a company of three, five, or ten people, “always fight for ownership, equity and some kind of share option,” or you are just building someone else’s dream (at 13:07 in the video).⁠[9][9]

Be selective about criticism: “never take criticism from someone you would never go to for advice”; constructive criticism is valuable, but there is no need to heed criticism from people who have never done what you are trying to do (at 13:45 in the video).⁠[9]

HURR: Official website: https://www.hurrcollective.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]