DN Capital invests alongside the crowd to raise second largest amount on site

LOVESPACE, a distinctive storage company founded by Streetcar co-founder and entrepreneur Brett Akker, has attracted major venture capital firm, DN Capital, alongside the crowd to help raise £1.6m on equity crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube – the second largest amount raised on the site behind Hab Housing.

LOVESPACE, which was named one of the UK’s top-50 most disruptive companies, is the first storage-by-the-box company in the UK, helping customers to ‘live a bigger life, one box at a time’.

Raising an additional £1m over its original target of £600,000 in just 12 days, the company saw its largest single investment of £250K come from one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms and major Shazam investor, DN Capital.

“This is the clearest indication yet that VCs are helping fund companies looking for alternative finance via crowdfunding,” according to Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube.  “It shows that VCs as well as other institutional investors can invest alongside the crowd and reinforces the fact that crowdfunding is now a seriously credible and viable funding platform.”

Brett Akker joins a growing list of proven and high profile entrepreneurs using Crowdcube to raise money, including Steve Smith, founder of Poundland who raised half a million pounds last month for his latest venture, online estate agency EstatesDirect.com.  Other high-calibre entrepreneurs include Mark Henderson of Gieves & Hawkes fame who also recently funded on Crowdcube with his latest venture, The New Craftsman, offering high quality handcrafted products made in Britain.

“When hugely successful and respected industry figures like the founders of Streetcar, Poundland and Gieves & Hawkes turn to crowdfunding, you know that this is not just a one-off – long may it continue,” adds Luke Lang.

Tom Bradley, Partner at DN Capital, comments: “LOVESPACE is a company we could not miss out on investing in.  We have invested a total of £250,000 into the business because we believe it is a simple but brilliant idea, which is clearly providing an excellent alternative to traditional storage businesses.  We look forward to being part of the company as it continues to go from strength to strength in the coming months.”

LOVESPACE, which has stored a total of 10,000 boxes for nearly 2,000 customers, raised additional funding to increase their warehouse space to over 20,000 square feet and invest in additional marketing activities and technology to increase the efficiency of the business. The company will be expanding its fleet and increasing the number of drivers, customer service experts and developers in its workforce.

LOVESPACE Managing Director, Steve Folwell, who led the latest funding round adds: “I am thrilled we have had such a successful round of funding using Crowdcube. We have been steadily growing customer numbers and developing our services since launch last November, and this additional funding will allow even further expansion of our customer offering and importantly storage space. We are very grateful to all the support shown in this round of funding and are delighted to welcome the new investors. We are excited about building LOVESPACE into a bigger business, one box at a time with all of our investors.”