OnBuy has committed to becoming a Premier Business Partner with Dorset Chamber in 2021 as part of its wider £10m investment into Dorset and cement it’s position as the darling of the county’s Silicon Beach. The fast-growing ecommerce business has operated from its headquarters in Poole since it was founded in 2016 and currently employs over 60 people.
The Dorset Chamber membership cements OnBuy’s Silicon Beach roots in the region and demonstrates its support to the regional business community, alongside its commitment to local recruitment.
OnBuy has seen meteoric growth in the past year, on the back of a successful £5m Series A fundraiser in June 2020. Sales grew 870% from November 2019 to November 2020 and have shot from a run rate of £24m to over £170m in one year. Tamebay’s marketplace tracker shows that visits to OnBuy grew from touch under 700,000 monthly visits to an amazing 3.512M monthly visits in the past year, adding almost 3 million monthly visits in 12 months – a 501% increase in traffic.
Along with OnBuy’s unprecedented growth, its seller base has increased by 10% every month over the last three consecutive months, with over 600 new sellers joining in November alone.
The marketplace’s sales are forecast to hit £2 billion before year-end 2023 and OnBuy’s Series B fundraiser is on the horizon in early 2021, allowing it to accelerate its phenomenal growth and continue expanding.
“OnBuy has gone from strength to strength in the last four years and after a record-breaking 2020, we’re going to grow even faster in 2021.
We’ve set our sights on achieving unicorn status and we’re going to achieve that from our HQ right here in Dorset. Reaching unicorn status is about establishing the credibility of our vision worldwide, and I’m looking forward to taking our ethical ecommerce ecosystem to the world stage. We’ll be doubling our Dorset-based team within the next two years and Ian and I have already had exciting conversations with BCP Council about finding a new OnBuy HQ, as we’re on the lookout for additional premises in the area too.
Although we’ll be investing an additional £10 million into expanding our operations in Manchester next year, on top of the £10 million we’re committing to our home county, I see OnBuy’s headquarters remaining in Dorset. The county has huge potential; I want to put Dorset on the world stage for tech. Forget Silicon Valley, it’s all about Silicon Beach now and OnBuy will be Dorset’s first unicorn tech company!
I’m glad to be working with Dorset Chamber to help realise these ambitions for the area and am looking forward to connecting with more Dorset businesses through the network.”
– Cas Paton, CEO, OnBuy
“We are delighted to welcome OnBuy on board as a Premier Business Partner and active recruiter within our community. OnBuy is one of the most exciting, fastest-growing businesses in the county and we’re pleased to be able to support the company in realising its ambitions.
Businesses like OnBuy help to keep Dorset on the map for business and entrepreneurialism so that we can continue to attract great talent and encourage more ambitious founders, like Cas, to start their businesses in the county. We are looking forward to working with OnBuy as they continue on their upward trajectory.”
– Ian Girling, Chief Executive, Dorset Chamber
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