London/Berlin-based mobile native e-commerce platform Fy! raises £5 million

London/Berlin-based home, living, and lifestyle retail platform Fy! has raised £5 million.

Led by Hoxton Ventures, the round also included a number of undisclosed angel investors. The investment is expected to further propel international expansion primarily into the US, Australia and the EU. Likewise, Fy! is reporting that the funding will also be earmarked for further development of their proprietary machine learning technology that powers the platform.

Founded in 2014, Fy! finds itself in a unique position, as online retail has exploded over the past year. So much so that the company is reporting a 10x revenue growth year over year at an annual run rate of £35 million.

Fy! Is aimed at mobile native shoppers, i.e. the 25-40 year old market, who, according to Fy! are underserved by traditional retail. In what seems like endless lockdown after lockdown, brick and mortar stores, which were already teetering on stilts, have all but disappeared, and the world has gone all in on online.

The company uses a combination of social content, machine learning, and product knowledge to tailor a curated mobile experience, reportedly, unique to every shopper. Now throw free shipping into this mix, something we’ve all become accustomed to, and it’s not a hard pill to swallow to see why Fy! is on to something.

“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,” comments Fy! Co-Founder Tom Beverley.

Hoxton Ventures’ Hussein Kanji adds, “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 a huge one - 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.”