Meghan Markle Was Cesta Collective's 'Dream Customer.' Now, She's Their First Outside Investor (Exclusive)

When it comes to investing in companies, Meghan Markle knows what she’s looking for — and the most recently announced business in her investment portfolio, Cesta Collective, ticked all the boxes.

In a new interview with The New York Times published on Aug. 28, the Duchess of Sussex announced that she was an investor in Cesta, a handbag company that specializes in basket bags handwoven by a collective of women in Rwanda before being finished in Italy.

"Courtney and Erin have a really incredible and strategic business,” Meghan, 43, said in a statement. “The quality of a brand’s products, the supply chain, ethical standards and practices — these are all things that I consider before making an investment. With Cesta, I really started to understand how many women’s lives were being impacted and uplift through their work. That was incredibly important to me.”

Meghan was also impressed with the brand’s co-founders, Erin Ryder and Courtney Weinblatt Fasciano, who created Cesta in 2018 after careers in different aspects of the fashion industry spanning a decade each — Ryder as a brand director and Fasciano as an editor and marketing director.

“Erin and Courtney have a great pedigree from their careers working in fashion and have created beautiful products that equally help so many others,” Meghan said. “That was something I could get behind and support.”

Meghan was their “dream customer,” Fasciano tells PEOPLE exclusively, adding that she and Ryder appreciate Meghan’s insight and advice.

“She genuinely understands our brand and where we want to take it,” she says.

The relationship between Meghan and Cesta happened organically. After Meghan carried the brand’s Canvas Bucket Bag on a May 2023 dinner date with her husband, Prince Harry, “it brought more attention to the brand than we’d ever seen — a 910% increase in seven-day site traffic,” Ryder tells PEOPLE. “The following seven-day period was our most profitable week in company history.” (Meghan told The New York Times that she found out about Cesta while online shopping.)

From there, the duo sent Meghan a thank you note “which began a longer conversation around our shared values,” Fasciano says, “and the rest is history.”

Cesta is currently still a team of two, Ryder said, “but we have big ambitions. Our goal is to build a brand that works with a large network of artisans globally, expanding our impact — and our category offering. We hope this will include ready-to-wear, footwear [and] additional accessories.”

Meghan’s exact investment is confidential, but Ryder and Fasciano confirmed to The New York Times that it was a minority stake. The Duchess of Sussex’s backing “allows us to focus on expanding our team and to build bench strength so we can go further faster,” Fasciano says. “We’ve already kicked off development in new geographies that we’re excited to introduce in the coming seasons.”

The two specifically chose Rwanda because basket weaving holds important significance in the country, Ryder said.

“It’s a rite of passage — a skill often passed down from mother to daughter,” she adds. “In the aftermath of the country’s devastating genocide in 1994, women came together to weave baskets as a means of unifying — to heal their communities and to foster peace. Today, basket weaving continues to be important in Rwanda, as it offers income and empowerment to the women who craft them — and remains a symbol of hope and reconciliation. We are honored to work with artists in this medium.”

And honored to work with Meghan, who Fasciano described as “the kind of woman who embodies the brand’s fundamental ethos — not only is she a careful consumer and curator of her life, but she shares our commitment to service and to building a collective better future.”

Meghan is the brand’s first equity investor and strategic partner, and Ryder says of the Duchess of Sussex, "She doesn’t have to use her platform to make a difference in others’ lives, but she chooses to — and that’s inspiring and incredibly impactful. Imagine the positive change we could see in the world if more people embraced this mindset.”

As Cesta enters this next chapter of their business, “We feel good about where we are and even better about where we are heading,” Ryder says. “We are continually pushing towards a higher standard.”

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Meghan also seems excited about the next stage in her life, one she referred to as her “chapter of joy” while visiting Colombia earlier this month. With an investment portfolio spanning between five to 10 brands, she’s also building a brand of her own: American Riviera Orchard, which PEOPLE confirmed on Aug. 28 is set to launch later this year.

Meghan is nearly four years into supporting female-led companies after her first investment with vegan instant latte company Clevr Blends in 2020.

"Investing in them has helped me line up for this chapter where I’m investing in myself,” Meghan told The New York Times.