Swole Panda: How they grew 80% in a year – without giving up equity
"Treyd pays your suppliers and lets you focus on the sales. It's built for how a stock business works."
Swole Panda has had a relentless focus on both product quality and sustainability with their line of bamboo based accessories – and it was working. Then came a moment that tested whether they could keep it that way. We spoke to co-founder James Slacke about how they’ve managed to grow organically.
In short
Company: Swole Panda
Industry: Sustainable bamboo accessories
Treyd customer since: 2022
Number of invoices financed: 20+
Challenge: A shareholder buyout created a cash strain when the business needed to keep investing in stock.
Outcome: 80% annual growth followed by 25% consecutive growth. New product categories. A DTC channel. All without raising external capital.
Why it works: Treyd is built around how a stock business actually operates.
The background
Since launching in 2017, Swole Panda had grown steadily – doubling in size over their first five years through a combination of their own cashflow and one external shareholder. Lean, focused, and largely in control of their own destiny. But in 2023, the business faced a different kind of pressure. They needed to buy out that shareholder. It was the right move for the company's future – but it put a real strain on cashflow at exactly the moment they needed to be doubling down on stock. In a product business, inventory isn't optional. If you can't buy the stock, you can't sell it. And if you can't sell it, you don't grow. Something had to give – unless they could find a way to bridge the gap.
Financing with a different kind of fit
Swole Panda came across Treyd at the right time, and what struck them wasn't just what Treyd offered – it was how it was structured. Most financing products aren't built with product businesses in mind. They're built for a generic cash flow problem. Treyd felt different. The way Swole Panda describes it, Treyd is a stock financing company that pays your suppliers and lets you focus on the sales. Simple. Logical. Built around the rhythm of how inventory-led businesses actually work.
“Working with Treyd doesn’t feel like submitting requests into a void, and waiting to see what a system decides. There are real people involved, and a genuine sense that the team understands the business.”
– James Slacke, co-founder of Swole Panda
More than a transaction
But it's not just the product. It's the relationship – working with Treyd doesn't feel like submitting requests into a void and waiting to see what a system decides. There are real people involved, real conversations, and a genuine sense that the team understands the business – not just the application. For a founder-led company used to doing things on their own terms, that matters. They started using Treyd to navigate the shareholder buyout without pulling back on stock investment. It worked. So they kept going. Today, Treyd is the only financing facility Swole Panda uses. Aside from a Covid loan and their early external shareholder, they've avoided outside capital entirely – with Treyd as the engine that keeps inventory moving while cash cycles through.
“Treyd’s now the only financing facility we’re using.”
– James Slacke, co-founder of Swole Panda
What it made possible
In the first year of working with Treyd, Swole Panda grew by 80%, followed by a steady 25% growth rate – compounding, year on year, without giving up equity or taking on the wrong kind of debt. **“Thanks to Treyd, we’ve been able to grow 25% per year without giving up equity.” **says James. But the headline numbers only tell part of the story. What Treyd has really given Swole Panda is the capacity to make bets they couldn't have made otherwise.
What's next
Their upcoming swimwear range is one of them. Moving into a new product category takes capital – upfront, before a single unit sells. Without the headroom Treyd provides, that launch wouldn't be happening. Neither would their push into direct-to-consumer, a channel that demands serious investment long before it pays back. These aren't small decisions. They're the moves that define what a brand becomes. And for Swole Panda, they've been made possible not by raising a round or taking on a lender who doesn't understand the business – but by having a financing partner that's genuinely aligned with how they operate.
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