nline marketplace Fruugo has became the latest tech firm to reveal plans to float on London’s junior AIM index.
The cross-border marketplace is headquartered in Ulverston, Cumbria, from where it helps 1,400 mainly small and medium sized retailers win customers around the world. Employing proprietary tech and data science, Fruugo allows shoppers to purchase across 31 currencies and in 28 languages.
Its total transaction volumes more than doubled last year to nearly £100 million, according to reports.
The company hopes the IPO, expected early next month, will raise its profile to “fuel a significant increase” in retail users as well as cash, which will be put in part towards building a speedier automated sign-up process for retailers – a historical constraint to growth.
Fruugo was launched 15 years ago, and bosses said its prospects have been boosted by the global, pandemic-induced boom in shopping online.
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Co-founder and executive chairman, Dominic Allonby, said his business is “fast-growing, asset light, and built for scale”.
He said: “Fruugo’s mission is simple: to enable shoppers everywhere to buy from retailers anywhere, and to enable retailers to access international demand for their products that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.”
A flurry of tech businesses have debuted in London this year, from multi-billion pound IPOs of Darktrace and Deliveroo, to smaller floats from the likes of gadget seller music Magpie.
