– UK, London – LoveCrafts, the creator of online crafts communities, with millions of users across 140 countries worldwide, today announces completion of a £26 million funding round led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), together with current investors Balderton and Highland Europe.
This represents the largest investment in a venture-funded business in the UK this year. The investment follows a surge of industry recognition for LoveCrafts including being named one of the fastest growing UK and European companies by both the FT1000 and Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and induction into Tech City’s prestigious Future Fifty programme.
LoveCrafts’ mix of content, commerce and community enables thousands of makers to find inspiration, plan projects, buy supplies and share creations with a fast-growing community of like-minded crafters. For independent designers, it’s a place to share inspiration and sell their designs.
This unique combination of social network, video education, content marketplace and online store is proving increasingly popular with a burgeoning base of loyal makers across the world.
This significant investment from current backers together with SEP, which counts Skyscanner and Matchesfashion.com among its past and present investments, will allow LoveCrafts to further scale operations and improve the technology which enables users to connect through the platform. This will include the launch of further crafting sites and a continued focus on expanding internationally to fulfil LoveCrafts’ ambition to be the digital leader in the global $100 billion crafts market.
LoveCrafts was founded in the UK in 2012 by three entrepreneurs, Cherry Freeman, Nigel Whiteoak and Edward Griffith, looking to build a community that would support and unite makers worldwide. The company has enjoyed four years of strong and steady growth to date, and revenue continues to double year on year, supported by a 150 strong team.
Edward Griffith, Founder at LoveCrafts said: “It’s always been our goal to connect makers, designers and creatives across the world in a social and accessible way, and this investment will help us to do this in more markets, with greater scale and better tools. We are delighted that SEP, together with our current backers, share our vision for the business, and confidence in its future.”
Stuart Paterson, Partner at Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) who joins the board of LoveCrafts, said: “Crafting is the world’s largest hobby. LoveCrafts has built an impressive, scalable, digital community-based platform targeting an international market worth $100 billion per annum. It has a large and rapidly growing customer base in the UK and US, and our investment will enable further expansion across Europe and Australasia, reinforcing the company’s position as the end to end destination for crafting enthusiasts across the globe.”
Daniel Waterhouse, partner at Balderton, said: “For crafters around the world LoveCrafts has become an essential destination: a community as well as a great market place. We are delighted to increase our investment in this innovative business which reinvents traditional crafts for a digital age.”Laurence Garrett, partner at Highland Europe, said: “LoveCrafts has demonstrated impressive growth over the last four years and we look forward to continuing our support for the dynamic company as it expands into new international markets and launches new crafts which will introduce a whole new group of committed users to the platform.”
Gerard Grech, CEO at Tech City UK, said: “LoveCrafts has made the most of the strong tech eco system and community in the capital to launch its business into markets around the world. We are proud that the UK’s biggest funding round this year has come out of the Future Fifty programme.”
About LoveCrafts
LoveCrafts’ mix of content, commerce and community provides a complete ecosystem for makers – from inspiration to project planning, buying their supplies and sharing their creations. Each part of the experience has been carefully designed to meet the very different needs of individual crafting tribes.
The content marketplace is a platform for independent designers to market their designs and now supports thousands of designers from all over the world. Makers come to browse beautiful images and plan their next project. Buying everything they need is a single step process, and results in healthy order values. Makers are uniquely social people, and the new tools for sharing and following have had exceptional take up, creating a vibrant and contributing community of users which is growing rapidly.
LoveCrafts’ head office is in Soho, London, and its distribution centres in Missouri and Manchester have delivered over ten million balls of yarn to date. Its nearshore development and back office centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, has proven to be a valuable engine for attracting talented staff and will be an important engine of growth in the future.
For more information : http://www.lovecrafts.com
About Scottish Equity Partners
Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) backs the best high growth technology businesses across the UK and beyond. It has $1 billion under management and one of the longest and strongest venture capital track records in Europe having invested in over 150 companies over the last 20 years. Operating from offices in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, SEP makes equity investments of up to £20 million across a range of sectors, with a particular interest in enterprise software, consumer internet and tech-enabled service businesses.
Global travel search business Skyscanner is one of three SEP investments to have secured an exit of over $1bn in recent years and its current portfolio contains some of Europe’s most exciting and innovative companies including luxury fashion retailer Matchesfashion.com, data centre business Pulsant, language learning business Babbel, car finance specialist Zuto and insurance technology specialist SSP. SEP builds value by playing an active and supportive role in the growth and development of its portfolio companies.
For more information : http://www.sep.co.uk
About Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, focused on investing in the best European technology companies at Series A. Based in London, the firm manages $2.3bn. Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 100 companies, principally across Europe. Notable investments include Talend (open-source data integration provider, went public on Nasdaq in 2016); Magic Pony Technologies (acquired by Twitter in 2016); NaturalMotion (the mobile gaming developer, sold to Zynga in 2014); Betfair (the online betting exchange, 2010 IPO; LOVEFiLM (the home entertainment subscription service, sold to Amazon in 2011); MySQL, (the open-source database software, sold to Sun Microsystems in 2008); and YOOX Group (the online retailer of leading fashion brands, IPO in 2009). The current portfolio includes companies such as 3D Hubs, Citymapper, Kobalt Music, Prodigy Finance, Qubit, Scytl, ROLI, Talend, and The Hut Group.
For more information : http://www.balderton.com
About Highland Europe
Highland Europe is exclusively focused on Growth Stage internet, mobile and software businesses. Launched in 2012 and with over €580m ($640m) in capital raised across two funds, the firm’s origins were as the European operations of Highland Capital Partners, a U.S. venture capital firm. Highland Europe is based in London and Geneva and its current portfolio includes Matchesfashion.com, GetYourGuide, WeTransfer, Nexthink and Malwarebytes, among many others.
For more information : http://www.highlandeurope.com
About Tech City UK
Tech City UK’s mission is to accelerate the growth of the UK’s digital economy by raising the profile of the UK’s digital and tech sector and providing the sector with everything it needs to keep growing at a rapid rate. Tech City UK does this through its programmes and policy work, focusing on skills, smart capital, investment and infrastructure. The Future Fifty programme was started three years ago to showcase and support fifty of the country’s leading growth stage companies. LoveCrafts joined in February 2017.
- Disclaimer - News, data, and statements included in this release are intended exclusively for general information purposes. Talent4Boards does not guarantee that news is accurate or about the correct person and accepts neither liability for the consequences of the reader’s reliance, nor responsibility for the accuracy of the information. Nothing in this release should be considered for decisions about referred securities. Products and brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.