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London-based online home decor startup Lick gets $22M for its sustainable range

Lick

Over the last year, the interiors market has flourished providing investors with great sector confidence, enabling startups to grow at a rapid rate. After spending more time than ever before in the home, consumers have also developed a newfound appreciation for their homes as our own spaces have become more important than ever to how we feel and how we represent ourselves.

This trend has meant there has never been a more exciting time to be startups in the home-decor sector. But at the same time, the sector is in need of modernisation, with just 4% of all paint in the UK sold online before COVID-19, going against the spending power of millennials, who are actively championing a D2C approach, providing startup brands like Lick with the perfect opening to claim their own market share.

Lick raises $22M

Lick, the direct-to-consumer online home brand that aims to position itself as sustainable as well, and has just announced a $22 million Series A investment.

The round, led by OMERS Ventures with participation from existing investors Felix Capital and contributions from industry-leading entrepreneurs and PE investors including Magnus Rausing, Alex Chesterman and Kathaka, the family office of Caroline Rupert of Richemont. With the latest investments, they aim to expand their product offerings, launch new sustainability initiatives, and grow the thriving community of home decorators across the globe.

Since its launch, Lick offers a curated range of sustainable paints, wallpapers, blinds, and supplies, sold through an omnichannel distribution. Further, they’ve created a growing community of decorators (185,200 strong), including first-timers to grand-designers driving the force within the brand.

As per the company press release, this community has been instrumental in driving the brand’s growth—achieving a $7 million revenue run-rate within the first 8 months, with Lick seeing an 830% in the last nine months.

Crowdfunding round for decorators

Lick was founded by Lucas London and Sam Bradley, Lick aims to get its decorators to join their latest funding round to raise an additional $1.4 million via a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. The crowdfunding round is scheduled to go live today, and the campaign has already seen interest with 4,000 members of Lick’s community pre-registered to invest – making the round 2.6x oversubscribed ahead of going live.

With this, their latest investment and crowdfunding will bring Lick’s total raised to $29 million, as the brand looks toward international expansion taking on the home decorating market, which is predicted to grow close to $1 trillion by 2027.

Speaking of the investment Lick Co-Founder, Lucas London said, “We’re really excited to be partnering with the OMERS Ventures and Felix Capital teams – both to expand our product offering and also inspire even more people to decorate, all around the world. At Lick we offer paint, wallpapers, blinds and decorating supplies, but what we’re really building is a people-powered decorating movement; and confidence in decorators of every level to transform their spaces, and make their homes their own.”

“Already we’ve helped make over 30,000 houses feel like home, listened to our decorators and launched new categories and product extensions, built a superb 38-person strong team bringing in expertise from FarFetch and Charlotte Tilbury, and planted enough trees to cover over 72 football pitches and removed the equivalent of 122,504 plastic bottles from the ocean. In short, our curated offering and unique approach to content are bringing a fresh look to decorating.”

“In the short time since its launch, Lick has completely shaken up this sector, by re-thinking every step of the customer journey from inspiration to decoration, for the modern digital-native consumer and professional decorator”, says OMERS Ventures Managing Partner, Harry Briggs. “We believe this team and this brand have what it takes to become global category leaders and help millions of people transform their homes.”

Felix Capital Co-Founder, Antoine Nussenbaum says: “We have identified “building Home as a heaven” as a central behavioral shift in people’s lives, somehow accelerated by the recent pandemic we’re going through. Lick is building a modern branded platform far more relevant to customers – combining a best-in-class shopping experience, together with a sense of community and purpose. It’s been less than a year since our original investment and our conviction has only increased towards Lucas, Sam and the amazing team they’re building at Lick.”

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