Appear Here, the UK’s largest online marketplace for retail space, announced today that it had raised $7.5 million of new funding, in a round led by Balderton Capital, Europe’s leading venture capital firm. This significant new investment follows 18 months of dynamic growth from Appear Here, which has facilitated over 500 short-terms lets in the last 12 months and now has over 600 properties available to hire at prime locations across the United Kingdom.
Appear Here was founded in 2012 by Ross Bailey, a 22-year-old entrepreneur who started out with his own pop-up shop on Carnaby Street, selling limited edition T-shirts to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. Now Appear Here makes space available in major UK cities and towns – including London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh– and has worked with brands including Marc Jacobs, Google, Diageo, Jamie Oliver, Moleskine, Net-a-Porter and the Science Museum, as well as start-ups such as Black Sheep Coffee, Paper London and Spoon Cereals.
Ross Bailey said, “We’re delighted that Balderton have come on board with this major round of funding. The investment enables international expansion in 2015, and also further investment in our customer service: we have already developed five-star service for customers – including a concierge service, and online contracts and payments, which make it even easier for people to turn their ideas into reality.”
Eight out of the UK’s ten biggest retail landlords have now signed exclusive deals with Appear Here for marketing their space, including British Land, Capital and Regional and Legal and General. Earlier this year Appear Here signed a deal with TfL to market space in Underground stations, which has seen major brands and imaginative business setting up for business in Old Street station and others. As well as traditional street shop space in prestigious locations, Appear Here has available spaces in shopping centres (including London’s Burlington Arcade), rooftops, markets and galleries. Over the last 12 months, Appear Here has seen the number of properties listed increase 200% to over 600 sites with over 10,000 brands now searching the database at any one time, up from 3000 in 2013.
