Tailfin Joins MVC Group, Home of Castelli and Sportful

Date

September 2026

Client

Tailfin (UK)

Service

Sell-Side M&A Advisory

Buyer

MVC Group (Italy)

Outdoor, Premium Bikepacking Racks, Bags and Components

Bell Lap Advisors served as sell-side advisor to Tailfin, the Bristol-based leader in premium technical bikepacking gear, on its sale of a majority stake to MVC Group. The founder and management team continue to lead the business and keep a minority stake.

The company

Tailfin designs and engineers premium racks, bags, accessories and components for bikepacking and adventure cycling. Founder and CEO Nick Broadbent, a mechanical engineer and product designer, launched the brand on Kickstarter in 2016 and founded the company in Bristol in 2017.

Tailfin grew alongside the bikepacking category it helped define. Over the past five years it has grown at roughly 50% a year, reaching close to €10 million in 2025 revenue, with more than half of sales coming from the US, UK and Germany. The company is also a two-time King's Award winner, recognized for both Innovation and International Trade.

The buyer

MVC Group (Manifattura Valcismon) is an Italian maker of technical apparel for cycling and outdoor sports, founded in 1946 and still controlled by the Cremonese family, with private equity firm Equinox as an investor since 2019. Its brands include Castelli, Sportful, Karpos and Zoot, and it sells in 75 countries through 10 subsidiaries.

Tailfin is MVC's fourth transaction in under a year, following the launch of a UK subsidiary, the Wolvenberg acquisition that formed MVC Benelux, and Zoot's purchase of its European distributor.

The transaction

Nick and the team wanted more than an exit. Tailfin had reached the point where a fast-growing physical-product business needs deeper commercial, logistics and industrial resources to keep scaling. The goal was a partner that could provide that platform while preserving the brand's identity, autonomy and culture of innovation, with the founder and management team staying on to lead it.

MVC Group fit that brief. Tailfin's racks, bags and components complement Castelli and Sportful apparel rather than overlap with them, and MVC's 75-country footprint gives Tailfin a ready path into new markets. MVC also gains engineering talent and intellectual property it expects to put to work across its triathlon and outdoor brands.

Bell Lap Advisors advised Tailfin on the sale, alongside Tom Onda Consulting, Roxburgh Milkins and Cooper Cavendish. MVC Group was advised by PwC and Freeths.

Why it matters

The deal is a strong example of a founder-led bike brand finding a strategic home that values what it built. Tailfin keeps its leadership, its Bristol roots and a meaningful equity stake, while gaining a global platform to accelerate growth. For MVC, it extends an 80-year-old cycling apparel group into hard goods and the fast-growing bikepacking category.

For founders of category-leading bike, outdoor and consumer brands, it shows that the right buyer can be one that funds the next chapter rather than replaces the team.

Bell Lap Advisors is a sell-side M&A advisory firm based in Bend, Oregon, focused on founder-owned companies in the bike, outdoor and consumer products sectors.