Image credits: OnBuy
Recently, OnBuy, the UK-based online marketplace, has secured £35M (approx €41M) funding in a Series A+ round.
The investment came from Bring Ventures, Norway Post venture arm, Fuel Ventures, Guy Hands (founder and chairman of Terra Firma Capital Partners), Knut Frängsmyr (Deputy CEO of Klarna), and Richard Goulding (founder of Play.com), amongst other strategic investors.
Recently, the winners of the 2021 Future Hamburg Award were announced.
This investment round comes exactly a year after raising £5M (approx €41M) from Fuel Ventures.
Fund utilisation
The new investment, which will be a mix of equity and debt, will fuel further growth of the company, as it sets its sight to become a unicorn in the coming years.
In addition to external investment, a £2M (approx €2.3M) allocation was set aside for retailers currently using the platform. This funding will help OnBuy to develop its product offering and grow internationally.
The company wants to expand its operation to over 140 countries by 2023 year-end.
Fairer marketplace
Founded by Cas Paton in 2016, OnBuy has attracted more than 7,000 retailers, hosting over 36 million products on the platform. The company aims to offer a fairer marketplace to host well-known brands both big and small, and high-quality products at great prices.
Since its inception, the Bournemouth-based company has grown to £155M (approx €181M) annualised GMV with only £8M (approx €9.3M) in total investment until now.
13X growth
As per the company’s claims, OnBuy has grown by 13x in the past 13 months, including recording its third consecutive year of over 600 per cent YoY growth in 2020.
Also, sales in March 2021 were £3M (approx €3.5M) higher than those recorded the month prior. This puts OnBuy well on track to breach £200M (approx €233M) in sales in the coming 12 months.
Security and new hires
The company has partnered with PayPal for security and encryption. Meaning, the user’s transaction on OnBuy will be protected with PayPal’s advanced data encryption and subject to their thorough security checks to prevent fraud, email phishing, and identity theft.
A couple of months back, the company made some important hires including Aron Cody-Boutcher as Chief Marketing Officer, James Watts as Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Lister as Chief Commercial Officer.
Cas Paton, founder, and CEO of OnBuy, comments, “The global eCommerce market is expected to total $4.2 trillion by the end of 2021, a figure that is set to grow even more over the next few years, however, it’s alarming to see that the industry is still following the same detrimental and unfair marketplace model that has existed for years. I created OnBuy to provide something unique: a clear, level playing field – and in our 4 years of rapid growth, it’s clear to see that this is a model that works to everyone’s advantage.”
He adds, “This investment will allow us to unlock even more potential and take OnBuy to the next level with an even better, easier to use product than ever before. We’re here to make noise, challenge the status quo and change the digital marketplace landscape forever.”
