Cramlington alternative fashion brand Disturbia made £52.8m in revenue for the year to January 2026, up 50 per cent on the year before.
The result followed Refined Capital Partners taking an equity stake in December 2023. The US firm Digital Fuel Capital then added a minority investment in February 2026, to fund the business's next stage of growth.
Founders Francis and Helen Major, both Northumbria University graduates, started the business printing T-shirts in 2003. It grew into an online-only label selling gothic-inspired clothing with no wholesale accounts and no physical shops.
The Refined Capital Partners deal completed on 10 December 2023. Four new directors joined the board that day, including chair Ben Barnett, and the company promoted Richard Leeson to chief executive. Paul Brown and Irene Major, who had run the company's administration as joint secretaries since it started, stood down the same day.
Refined Capital Partners said at the time that the business had made £18.1m in the year to January 2024, up 63 per cent, and named new hires covering finance, product, buying and e-commerce. Harper & Willow Ltd's accounts put the exact figure for that year at £18.2m.
The company's most recent accounts name its immediate parent as Arcanologists Limited, part of a wider Arcanologists Group. The directors say there is no ultimate controlling party.
Digital Fuel Capital, a US firm that invests in direct-to-consumer brands, took its stake in February 2026 to fund further American expansion. Leeson said the money had gone into design, merchandising and performance marketing teams. Digital Fuel Capital put revenue for the twelve months to that point at about £55m, which it described as having nearly tripled in two years. That trajectory is consistent with turnover of £18.2m for the year to January 2024, £35.1m the following year and £52.8m in the year to January 2026.
Operating profit for the year to January 2026 was £12.5m, up from £8.2m, an operating margin of about 24 per cent. Orders are fulfilled from three warehouses in the UK, the Netherlands and the US.
Disturbia's design and buying operation is still run from the North East. Its accounts show headcount rising from 42 to 62 in the year to January 2026, alongside its six directors.
Sales outside the UK, recorded in the accounts as "Rest of the World" turnover, made up 69.1 per cent of the total in the year to January 2026, up from 61.8 per cent the year before and 56.2 per cent the year before that. Disturbia was ranked 54th nationally and the fastest-growing private business in the North East on the Sunday Times's 2026 list of Britain's 100 fastest-growing private companies.
The year to January 2027 will be the first full year to run entirely inside the Digital Fuel Capital-backed period. It is the one to watch for whether the US investment pulls more of the business, staff and warehousing, towards America, or whether the design and buying functions stay where the Majors built them.