The story of building a verified purchase network.
Every chapter captures a milestone, experiment or lesson that has shaped Vela's journey.
Two months on from Chapter 04 - the product is reinforcing itself, and the output is compounding.
Sixty days on: £11.2m lifetime verified GMV (~5× Chapter 04), 408 paying PLUS subscribers, Dr Will's signed as the second brand partner (live 28 Oct), Health & Beauty and Fashion verticals both live, and a £256k record day. Customer service back under target via an AI agent. First close completed; a further allocation of up to £500k now open to existing shareholders at the same £12.5m valuation.
Read the latest chapterTwenty days after Chapter 03, the engine didn't stop - £2.1m of verified GMV in 30 days, a £99.5k record day, PLUS at 150+, and Nestlé signed as the first supplier agreement. The £300k bridge opened.
The first evidence of a repeatable consumer growth engine — the sails filling. A single organic Reddit post lit the referral loop and pulled Vela from steady growth into hundreds of new members a day.
Commercial validation, enterprise partnerships and the foundations of the next stage of growth.
The year we proved the mechanic works — and built the platform to scale it in 2026.
Rebrand · Reewild becomes Vela
Full company reset — new name, identity, tone of voice and consumer app in market. Read the deep-dive on the rebrand rationale.
Mastercard partnership deepens
Onboarded as a Mastercard supplier and admitted to Start Path. First issuer conversations open across the UK and Europe.
First behavioural pilot proves the model
UCL × Compass Group × Mastercard pilot delivers first hard evidence that rewarding better choices measurably shifts consumer behaviour.
Davos · Goals House · Mastercard TechLodge
At WEF 2025 with Goals House and on the Mastercard TechLodge roundtable — Powering the circular economy in the intelligent age. Featured in the Goals House Davos 2025 impact report.
Mastercard Start Path · admitted to the programme
Admitted to Mastercard's global Start Path fintech programme in New York — the moment the Mastercard relationship became formal, and the issuer pipeline began to open.
Hyderabad engineering team established
A wedding trip turned into an engineering office. Co-founder Rithin returned to India, hired and trained a team on the ground — cutting cost, roughly doubling ship velocity, and shifting the company from a UK-only cell to a distributed operating model.
BBC Good Food · carbon-calorie recipe collection
Featured by Immediate Media (BBC Good Food) — bringing the reward-better-choices thesis to a mainstream UK food-and-drink audience and seeding the Immediate Media relationship that Vela now runs against.
Houses of Parliament · industry panel
Panel inside the Houses of Parliament during the COP27 policy window — an early public-affairs moment for Reewild, into the room where the climate-policy conversation was happening.
Microsoft AI for Environmental Sustainability Accelerator
Selected for Microsoft's AI for Environmental Sustainability Accelerator — validation from Microsoft at a moment when the model was still forming, and the opportunity to build alongside world-class AI experts.
Where it started · Reewild founded & the app goes live
Vela began as Reewild — a consumer app that rewarded better food and drink choices, built on the belief that if the systems around us recognised the healthier choices we already make, we'd make more of them. The app launched in mid 2023, modelled on Strava, MyFitnessPal and Fitbit. What we learned in the months that followed became the foundational thinking behind everything since.
The next full chapter will follow Nestlé's Q1 enterprise activation.
Read the latest chapter