Pimoroni, the creator of Raspberry Pi accessories and other maker products, is currently seeking £315,000 through equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to continue European expansion.
The company, which was founded by Jonathan Williamson and Paul Beech, stated:
“We launched the business off the back of our flagship product, the Pibow case for Raspberry Pi, which has now sold well over 125,000 units worldwide, appeared on the cover of Wired magazine, and is available from over thirty distributors worldwide including Maplin retail stores here in the UK. Since launch in 2012, and with only £15,000 in seed investment, we have built a business turning over £1.5 million with a net profit last year of over £75,000.
“We launched the UK’s first Kickstarter, a desktop-sized arcade cabinet powered by the Raspberry Pi called Picade, and opened our online Maker shop which, over the past two and a half years, has processed over 53,000 orders, grown to offer almost 1,000 different products, is the UK’s largest Adafruit distributor (a leading DIY electronics company based in New York), and has become a defacto destination for digital Makers in the UK.”
While revealing what makes Pimoroni stand out, the company’s team shared:
“The way we approach our products is a mixture of graphic design, electronics, software support, and user experience. Traditionally hobbyist electronics have been created by engineers, for engineers – we strive to make electronics accessible, attractive, low-friction, and fun to use for everybody. We also manufacture our products in-house which allows us to experiment with ideas, be agile in our manufacturing, and truly understand the processes involved.”
Funds from the campaign will go towards the following:
Hire engineers: Currently the company limited in how quickly it can turn around new product ideas. We’re keen to hire engineers with specific skill-sets to augment our team and help develop the pipeline of ideas it currently has planned.
- Hire content creators: A key driver of traffic and sales is good quality content (especially related to our own products). The company needs to create a corpus of high-quality tutorials, projects, and supporting video to draw in new customers.
- Expand into Europe: The company’s online shop is very popular in the UK – and we want to take the Pimoroni brand into Western Europe. Its online shop sales are currently primarily into the UK, expanding into Europe increases our potential direct customer base by 600%.
The company added:
“From an initial friends and family investment of £15,000 when we started, we’ve grown the business organically by re-investing the profits into expanding our team, online shop product range, and production capability. Our approach has worked well over the past three years but limits the speed at which we can invest in and grow the business.
“We’re at a point right now where we see massive potential for what we’re doing and want to really jump-start our growth for the next few years. Your investment will provide us runway for new hires, launching our European storefront, and the creation of new content while they start to generate revenue for the business.”
Since its launch, the Crowdcube campaign has secured nearly £30,000. It is set to close at the end of November.
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