Fy! secures five million pound investment

Homewares tech platform Fy! has secured five million pound investment led by Hoxton Ventures to build the “definitive socially driven home and living platform” and to expand the marketplace into the US, Australia and Europe.

The next-gen home, living and lifestyle retail platform for millennial consumers brings together homewares from independent brands and artists and in just over a year, the marketplace has reported 10x revenue growth, to an annual run rate of more than 35 million pounds. The increase in growth it states has been accelerated by mobile shopping trends fuelled by situational and generational consumer shopping behaviour changes.

In a statement, Fy! said that the funding from Hoxton Ventures and additional investment from several angel investors will enable the team to focus on growth in international territories including the US, Australia and Europe, as well as speed up the innovation of their proprietary, machine learning-driven technology platform.

Fy! uses a combination of social content, machine learning and product knowledge to create a personalised, curated mobile experience for every shopper. The current audience are aged 25 to 40-years-old who the platform states are “underserved by traditional retail” and are looking for inspiration and products for their home.

Currently, the platform features more than 2,500 independent brands and artists, including established galleries like William Morris, the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. It hopes that the funding will propel geographic expansion for the platform and enable its suppliers to benefit from an increased global customer base.

Fy! co-founder, Tom Beverley, said in a statement: “At Fy!, we’re passionate about building a new way to shop for all the products people care about. We’re thrilled to add Hoxton Ventures to the team and chose them due to their strong track record in supporting UK startups scale globally. We will be using this latest investment to continue to grow internationally - the US sales already make up over a third of Fy!’s revenue - by expanding our assortment there and launching Fy! in a number of large European markets.”

Homewares tech platform Fy! prepares to expand into America, Australia and Europe

The funding comes as retail is undergoing generational and situational changes with brick and mortar closures due to the pandemic, which has accelerated online and mobile usage. Consumers are also looking to buy more on their mobiles, with Fy! sharing that more than 50 percent of revenue originates on the Fy! mobile app.

Fy! co-founder, Jonathan Thomson, added: “At Fy!, we’re building a mobile platform that connects shoppers, brands and influencers in order to solve one of retail’s biggest problems - helping consumers discover products they love. We believe that solving this problem is key to accelerating the shift of bringing the emotional experience of product discovery online.

“Incumbent e-commerce players really struggle to innovate in this space because of legacy systems, so we see a huge opportunity to leap-frog the competition here. Our proprietary technology platform enables a thoughtfully curated and completely personalised mobile shopping experience that responds in real-time as users express their objectives and tastes through the app.”

Hussein Kanji, partner at Hoxton Ventures, said: “We’ve been impressed by the discipline and approach the team at Fy! have taken in rapidly scaling a brand in the home and living space - since we first spoke to them in early 2019. The category is a huge one - over 500 billion US dollars in size in the UK, Germany and US - with limited innovation and low levels of online penetration and we’re seeing significant changes in consumers’ shopping behaviours. Fy!’s approach and their growth convinced us they’re a team that can build a category-defining brand and product in this space and we are excited to be part of the journey.”

In addition to the funding, Fy! announced the appointment of Benjamin Leaver to its executive leadership team as its new chief financial officer. Leaver will be responsible for the company’s global financial, legal and people operations.

Images: courtesy of Fy!