Made.com gets growth capital to accelerate its European cross border growth

Made.com, a large furniture seller that is already active in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands got funding to accelerate its European growth. At first to ‘agressively grow in those markets’ in which it sees plenty of room to continue it’s growth.

According to the British Telegraph the deal was mooted 3 months ago, but the numbers of the deal and the strategy behind it, became public this week. “We wanted to raise less money but we were oversubscribed,” said Mr Li, co-founder of the company, who said that the company’s existing investors also took part in the round. Made.com’s founders still retain the majority stake.

Ning Li, co-founder of Made.com, teamed up with Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman to launch his business. Made.com currently does 30% of its turnover outside its Brittish home market and wants to grow that quicky. The deal follows two years of European growth for Made.com. “France and Italy, our first non-UK territories, have proved the business case,” said Mi Li. “We’ve decided to accelerate our European expansion and invest aggressively. The market opportunity in our current six markets is worth a collective €120bn. The homewares market in Germany alone is valued at €50bn, and the country is the prime focus for the business this year. We don’t exclude ourselves from entering other European markets but we’re already in the ones we really want,” said Mr Li.

In the Netherlands the company started in August 2014 and claims to grow with double numbers each month. However the texts, payment methods, visitor amounts and brand awareness are quite low which shows that there is plenty of room in the current markets.

About Made.com and it’s investors
Made.com, which recently relocated its London showroom to Soho, employs 170 people across its UK and Shanghai offices. Made.com was founded five years ago by 33-year-old entrepreneur Mr Li and school friends Julien Callede, and former architect Chloe Macintosh, who left the business in June this year to pursue other interests. The trio launched the business with Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, who has been a non-executive director since inception, and remains on the board. Investors Partech, with offices in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin, invests in US and Europe based internet companies. Private equity investor Fidelity also specialises in entrepreneurial IT companies.