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Edinburgh Football Fashion Brand Targets Growth



Edinburgh-based football apparel brand Universal Language has credited Business Gateway support with reshaping its commercial foundations as it prepares for its busiest period of trading since launching in December 2024.


Founded by school friends Chris Aitchison and Pete Burt, the brand produces high-quality, fan-focused clothing inspired by Scottish football culture. Chris brings commercial and marketing expertise built across years running his own agency, while Pete spent more than eight years as a designer in professional football, working for Hibernian and Tottenham Hotspur before returning to Edinburgh to build something made with a clear focus on the fans.


The idea first came to Chris while looking for a Hearts gift for his father. Searching online for football memorabilia, he couldn't find anything of suitable quality or true sense of the club and its culture. Seeing the gap, Chris brought it to Pete, and the pair set out to build a brand around what they felt was missing: products that celebrated a club's identity properly, rather than just its badge.


All products are designed in Edinburgh and printed or embroidered in the UK using sustainably produced garments. The range balances a permanent core collection with limited edition drops, allowing the brand to mark specific moments, clubs and cultural references while keeping its best-loved designs in circulation.


Current collections focus on Hearts, Hibernian and an expanding Scotland national team range, with plans to grow into further clubs and collaborations. The brand has also recently taken its products on the road with the opening of a special of pop-up shop, timed to coincide with the World Cup.


Since launching, Universal Language has reached more than 3,000 customers, sold 5,000 products and generated 1.5 million monthly social media views. The brand has also raised more than £2,500 for MND Scotland, its charity partner, through sales of an official Marius Zaliukas tribute t-shirt.


The Edinburgh Business Gateway team has worked closely with Chris and Pete to assess and restructure the business, reviewing its brand communication strategy and aligning every element behind a single commercial goal. The Business Gateway team extended that support to include specialist IP guidance, with an arranged session involving the Intellectual Property Office helping clarify trademark and copyright processes. Universal Language has since moved to trademark its brand and copyright its designs, protecting its assets as it looks ahead to the next stages of growth.


Pitch preparation sessions followed, opening connections with the potential to create new opportunities for the business, while Chris has also attended several Business Gateway workshops to expand the team’s knowledge in a range of key areas.


Julie Batten, Business Gateway adviser, said:

“Universal Language is a strong example of what happens when a genuine idea is backed by sound business thinking. Chris and Pete came to us with real momentum and connection to their audience. Our role was to help them build the right structure around it, from strategy to brand protection, so the business can grow on solid ground.”

Chris Aitchison, co-founder of Universal Language said:

“The support from Business Gateway came at exactly the right time. Sitting down and properly reviewing the strategy gave us a solid foundation and the confidence to continue growing the business, knowing we are headed in the right direction."

“The IP guidance has been equally important. As the brand grows, protecting what we've created matters more and more. We're genuinely grateful for the help getting that right.”

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Reward Funding has successfully completed a £360m re-finance as a key part of its strategy to increase its loan book to £500m in the next three years.


Advised by international advisory firm Interpath, Reward has received a £100m debut private securitisation from an international bank, a £150m senior debt facility from Quilam Capital, together with £110m of new funding lines from existing partners Foresight and RMB.


The landmark deal partially refinances Reward’s incumbent debt facilities whilst also providing liquidity and enhanced flexibility - enabling the business to support its continued expansion.


With Reward providing high-performance, asset-secured funding to help entrepreneurs and businesses thrive, its increased lending capabilities will be a welcome boost to those firms needing to finance growth, innovate or seize new market opportunities.


Nick Smith, group managing director for Reward, said:

“Being able to bolster our credit lines by a further £360m is a hugely significant deal for the business and will also benefit those companies which rely on our support to fund expansion in challenging economic conditions. It gives us such a strong foundation to achieve our goal of a £500m loan book within three years."

“Our whole ethos is built around working closely with entrepreneurs and SMEs to fund their ambition and offer a fast, agile funding solution that enables them to seize opportunities when they arise. This can only be made possible by the strength of our lending, and being on course to provide our busiest year of lending gives our new and existing clients that much-needed confidence and certainty in what remains an uncertain climate.”


David Harrop, group finance director for Reward expressed delight at the transaction, commenting:

“Successfully raising this level of institutional funding is a testimony to the business we have built at Reward. We look forward to working with our new and existing funding partners to provide further support to UK SMEs.”


Jordan Blakesley, managing director at Quilam Capital, said: “Reward is a distinguished specialist lender that provides tailored asset-secured facilities to UK entrepreneurs and businesses. Our relationship with management spans almost 10 years and we are delighted to be supporting Reward’s growth journey with the first senior credit transaction following the announcement of our strategic JV with J.P. Morgan earlier in the month.”



Jack Dutton, director at Interpath, who led the transaction alongside Olivia Dunning and Niamh Valentine from Interpath’s Debt Advisory team, said: “We have worked closely with Reward to understand their operational model and put in place a capital strategy that would allow them to continue to offer the flexible, dependable, and rapid approach to funding which has given them a pivotal role in the funding landscape for the SME community. It has been an absolute pleasure working with the team on this transformational financing, which introduces new institutional funding partners to the business.”



Since launching in 2010 to fill the fast-growing void left by traditional funding, Reward has supported over 2,000 property investors and businesses and provided over £1.2bn in funding across its five product areas.



Ashurst and Walker Morris acted as legal counsel to Reward.

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