Social delivery service Nimber has closed its latest funding round, bringing the total raised in the UK to over $1.25m in 2015 so far.
The latest $850,000 has come from existing and new investors, including Swiss Family Offices and Investment Bankers SJP Holdings, Laurent Raymond, Christophe Spanier and Rémi Berthon. This funding round forms part of Nimber’s ongoing investment strategy, which will include crowdfunding in late 2015, supporting the company’s focus on community and socially-driven concept.
The latest round of funding will be used to help develop Nimber’s growing UK business, expanding its operations, marketing, community and technical teams. Alongside its investment in people and expertise, Nimber will also use the funding to support the launch of the service in the UK and to drive continued growth of the company’s original market of Norway. Nimber recently moved its headquarters to London in a bid to further support further European expansion following its success in Norway.
Nimber has also appointed sharing economy expert Debbie Wosskow, CEO of lovehomeswap.com, founding chair of SEUK – the industry body for the sharing economy – and author of the UK government commissioned report Unlocking the Sharing Economy, to its board as an advisor.
Wosskow brings in-depth experience, and understanding of the UK sharing economy and will work closely with the management team to execute Nimber’s ongoing strategy in the UK market and other key territories.
Earlier this month, the company appointed its first head of marketing, Ching-Yun Huang, who joins the company from Wahanda. Huang will be responsible for the company’s external communications as it enjoys a period of ongoing rapid growth and increasing awareness in the UK.
Nimber works by connecting ‘senders’ and ‘bringers’ together, enabling people to recoup and make money on journeys they are already making by delivering items for others. It has been in Beta since April in the UK and its growing community stands at 40,000 across Scandinavia and the UK. A fully-fledged UK offering will launch in September 2015, along with the company’s much-anticipated iOS mobile application.
Nimber CEO Ari Kestin said: “It’s great to see how positively the UK is embracing the sharing economy, people are really getting behind the concept and incorporating it into their everyday lives. We’re really keen to build on this interest and momentum, and so we’re focusing on leveraging investment to build a robust team to drive our presence in the UK market and beyond. By the end of 2015, we plan to have doubled the company in size in terms of employees and have considerably increased our community base.”