London and Berlin-based next-generation home and living online retailer, Fy! has raised £5 million from Hoxton Ventures with additional investment from various angel investors.
Fy! will use this fund to focus on growth in international territories including the USA, Australia and the EU, and speed up the innovation of their proprietary, machine learning-driven technology platform.
The mobile shopping experience has favoured Fy!’s revenue growth to 10x in one year, by achieving more than £35 million in sales revenue.
Personalised shopping experience
Fy! uses a combination of social content, machine learning and product knowledge to create a personalised, curated mobile experience for every shopper. They partner with over 2,500 independent brands and artists to bring their unique home and living products to a new audience of mobile native shoppers. These shoppers – 25 to 40-year-olds who are underserved by traditional retail – are looking for inspiration and wonderful products for their home.
The funding comes when retail is undergoing generational and situational changes, where brick and mortar closures because of the global pandemic have accelerated online and mobile usage. Consumers have changed the way they shop and are expecting much more of online retailers – free fast shipping, a personalised, inspirational experience and a wide-ranging, affordable selection of products – all things Fy! offers. Consumers are also looking to buy on mobile – over 50% of Fy!’s revenue originates on the Fy! mobile app. For partner brands and artists, Fy! provides a much needed new way to get in front of and engage with global shoppers and grow their revenues.
Tom Beverley, Fy! Co-Founder commented, “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 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.”
Co-Founder, Jonathan Thomson commented, “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 eCommerce 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 response in real-time as users express their objectives and tastes through the app.”
The Hoxton Ventures Partner, Hussein Kanji, commented, “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 they’ve 10x’d their annual revenue run rate to over £35m+. The category is huge – over $500bn 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! also announced the addition of Benjamin Leaver to its executive leadership team. Benjamin joins as Chief Financial Officer and will be responsible for the company’s global Financial, Legal and People Operations. Ben brings a wealth of experience from previous roles at Naama Studios and Treatwell, as well as various non-executive director and advisory roles.
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