Describing itself as the ‘21st century duct tape’, Sugru, the mouldable glue product developed by Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, is looking across the Irish Sea for a round of equity crowdfunding worth £1m to support rapid expansion.
To help her and the company expand, Ní Dhulchaointigh has turned to Crowdcube, a crowdfunding campaign that focuses on selling stock in a company rather than just direct funding, allowing people who are behind an idea to be a part of its development.
Sugru has been showered with praise since it first began to be picked up by the world’s major media outlets in 2009, and since then won the rather impressive accolade of being considered one of the best inventions of 2010 by Time.
With this potential £1m-plus equity investment, Sugru plans on using the capital to grow awareness of the brand and support its fast-moving retail expansion in the UK, Scandinavia and the US.
Already, an extensive rollout of Sugru is underway across 4,000 stores at major US retailers, including Lowe’s Home Improvement and Target.
Thankfully for Sugru, the company is already well on its way to reaching its £1m target, with £642,970 invested at the time of writing from 873 investors.
Importance of US market
The US in particular is seen as Sugru’s eventual dominant market, as it has already experienced rapid retail expansion in response to increasing demand from US consumers, who make up 50pc of Sugru’s customer base and who until now have previously only been able to buy the product online.
By tapping into growing DIY markets around the world, the company is expected to double its presence in retail to 10,000 stores by the end of the year.
This brings the number of Sugru packs sold worldwide since it launched to 5m across 160 countries worldwide.
Speaking of this new online round of funding, Sugru inventor and CEO Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, commented: “We’ve now got over 1m users around the world who regularly get in touch to share videos and pictures of their latest triumph, however small. These people have helped us perfect the product and build the brand so it makes complete sense to let them share in the future success of Sugru.”
Inspirefest 2015 is Silicon Republic’s international event running 18-20 June in Dublin that connects sci-tech professionals passionate about the future of STEM with fresh perspectives on leadership, innovation and diversity.
