The founders of Occa-Home are planning for growth after winning investment from retail specialists The William Currie Group, who also backed ASOS. The investment in the designer furniture and online interior design specialist is for an undisclosed sum and is matched by original seed investor Bill Dobbie of the IDE Group. It will be used to expand Occa-Home’s digital marketing and web development as well as to introduce more brands and to improve the user experience.
Occa-Home says its turnover has doubled every year since it was founded, less than three years ago, and that in the last 12 months turnover grew by 180%. The site grew out of Occa-Design, which specialises in designing hotels. Occa-Home features magazine-style content alongside interior design ideas and service, and adds more than 200 new products each week to its range.
Through the deal, Bill Currie and Iain McDonald of The William Currie Group will join the Occa-Home board. Kate Mooney, founder and chief executive of Occa-Home, said: “As early-stage investors in companies like ASOS and The Hut, they have such a wealth of experience not ony in retail, but in investing and working with many highly successful ecommerce companies and we realy look forward to the results of adding that to the mix of our product knowledge and sector expertise.”
“Homes and gardens was one of the last sectors to move online,” said Jim Mooney, Occa-Homes operations director. “It is the fastest-growing sector, yet remains relatively immature. The team at Occa-Home have a solid design heritage and established supply chain from their years of procuring interiors for global hotel groups.
“With our expanding ecommerce and digital marketing abilities we are aiming to become one of the leading ecommerce businesses in the UK.”
Bill Currie, who is to join the board, said: “The team at Occa have built a fantastic website and excellent distribution network making them one of the leading independent retailers in this sector. They have the right foundations in place for a great e-commerce business and we are looking forward to working with them to achieve that.”
