Conor McKenna is co-founder and chief executive of Go Swag, a Glasgow company that sources, stores and delivers gifts and merchandise for over 1,000 organisations, including Meta, Apple and Netflix.
In May 2026, the business raised $5m (£3.7m) in a round led by Mercia Ventures with Techstart Ventures, for a total funding of $6.2m. The money will push Go Swag into the United States, open a warehouse in Southeast Asia and increase its team from 30 to 70 people. He told Business Matters why he learned to say no to clients, and why he thought the catalog was over.
What are you currently doing at Go Swag?
As co-founder and CEO, my main focus is setting the company’s strategic direction, driving global expansion and superior product innovation. We’ve created Go Swag as a corporate gifting platform with the technology to capture branded merchandise for global companies.
That means a lot of my days involve pushing a suite of technologies, from AI-powered product curation to customizable recipient management systems. Our Claims page allows recipients to enter their own details, and Sonny, an AI recommendation engine, helps clients choose products. Anything that ensures we eliminate friction for our clients at every step.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Go Swag got its start with my co-founder Ben and I encountered it firsthand when I was working at a software agency in Glasgow. We were asked to build an onboarding package for a new designer, but quickly discovered that the options available were of low quality and divided into fragmented suppliers. We ended up sourcing and packaging everything ourselves to make the kind of first impression we want new joiners to have.
When we asked HR about the scale of the experience, he showed us an operational nightmare: managing dozens of vendors, holding inventory and handling international shipping.
Coming from a design background, we saw a trillion dollar industry running on 20 year old catalogs and manual processes. Companies are spending millions perfecting their digital brands, but giving away their merchandise physically. We opened Go Swag to bridge that gap.
Will the new funding be used?
We raised $5m, led by Mercia Ventures with Techstart Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors. It will help us grow in the United States and open warehouses in Southeast Asia, along with what we have done in the UK, the Netherlands and the US.
We also plan to expand our team from 30 to 70 people in sales, engineering and operations, and to automate quoting, account management and product recommendations.
Who do you admire?
My biggest inspiration is my mom. He left home at 17 and built an incredible career through determination and work ethic, eventually becoming CEO. Watching her resilience up close taught me what leadership, adaptability and perseverance are in practice.
In business, I admire founders and builders who question industry status quos rather than accept them. Anyone who takes a stagnant category and fundamentally rebuilds it through better technology and design principles is someone I look up to.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
We should have learned to speak slowly. Early on, it’s easy to think the goal is just to hit the brief and match the target price, when in fact the client is relying on your expertise to back it up. Accepting product compromises may seem good at the moment, but taking shortcuts on quality is extremely dangerous for any brand.
We work with some of the most ambitious companies in the world, and we’ve built a reputation for ensuring that physical goods get the same attention as their digital front pages. Bringing a level of honesty to the field is not always the easiest way to win business, but it is how to build real trust in the long run.
What defines the way you do business?
I’ve always been a tinkerer, someone who likes to take apart complex systems to figure out where things fail and how to rebuild them more cleanly. That mindset dictates how we work: lean teams, fast execution and an uncompromising focus on quality.
We believe corporate gifting should not be considered a transactional procurement task; it is a high impact brand touch point. We act as an extension of our client’s team by taking full ownership of the back end. That means handling everything from receiving measurements to global distribution on three continents, so company leaders can stay focused on their core business.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Be prepared to deal with everyone, and surround yourself with smart and determined people. Most of the time building anything worthwhile is boring, repetitive work that no one sees. You have to learn to enjoy a bit, not just the result.
And don’t outsource the conviction. Most interesting businesses seem like terrible ideas until someone proves them. Ask for opinions, listen and learn, but remember that many people haven’t tried what you’re trying. Build, find customers and let real transactions tell you if you are right.