Trouva receives $10m Series A Funding led by BGF Ventures
Trouva, the curated marketplace for the UK’s homeware and lifestyle boutiques, today (13th November 2017) announced that it has raised $10m in a Series A round led by BGF Ventures, the UK’s largest venture fund, alongside Index Ventures (Europe’s largest VC fund and investors in Farfetch, ASOS and Etsy) and Octopus Investments (backers of Secret Escapes and Graze).
Trouva has built a technology platform which empowers handpicked offline independent stores to compete with retail multiples and e-commerce giants, while enabling customers to scour a huge array of over 80,000 distinctive, design-led products. Amid an accelerating industry shift to digital and omni-channel, the platform also offers real time ‘click and collect’, one-hour delivery (it has a record-breaking delivery time of just 22 minutes) and worldwide shipping.
Currently bringing together more than 350 of the UK’s independent shops and boutiques in over 100 towns and cities, Trouva’s network of stores is set to continue to grow rapidly. “We will be using the investment to further develop our unique platform at existing stores within the Trouva community, while funding expansion to new shops and boutiques across the UK, and ultimately further afield too,” says co-founder and CEO Mandeep Singh.
Harry Briggs, partner at BGF Ventures, says: “I love the passion that independent boutiques bring to their craft – discovering wonderful products and creating a place that’s a joy to visit. Everyone’s discovered a boutique somewhere that’s full of things that feel made for their home. Trouva helps those boutiques reach more customers, and helps customers further-afield keep up with their favourite boutiques’ latest ‘finds’. Discovery is so hard in homewares, and we believe that Trouva could help people across the world discover those unique, meaningful products that make home feel like home – while enabling the most extraordinary independent boutiques to not only survive, but thrive.”
The marketplace will also establish a new base in Lisbon, alongside its existing London HQ, as its tech team, led by co-founder and CTO Alex Loizou, triples in size.
Additional investors in this round include early investor Robin Klein at LocalGlobe, Playfair Capital, Downing Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. Trouva also has a number of high-profile angel backers, including the former CTO of Farfetch and NET-A-PORTER, David Lindsay, Troy Collins co-founder of Secret Escapes, William Reeve co-founder of LOVEFiLM, Carlos Morgado former Group CTO at Just Eat, and Wendy Becker, former CEO of Jack Wills.
Earlier this year Trouva was named one of the UK’s five fastest-growing tech businesses in TheNextWeb’s Tech5, having grown by over 1,509 per cent in the past two years. The startup also scooped The Europas 2017 Hottest E-commerce/Retail startup award and is a member of Tech City UK’s prestigious Upscale programme.
