French startup ManoMano has raised a $ 355 million Series F financing round led by Dragoneer Investment Group. The company operates an e-commerce platform that focuses on home improvement, home improvement and gardening products. It is currently available in six European countries. As of today’s funding round, the company is valued at $ 2.6 billion.
In addition to the Dragoneer Investment Group, Temasek, General Atlantic, Eurazeo, Bpifrances Large Venture Fund, Aglaé Ventures, Kismet Holdings and the Armat Group are also involved.
“We operate in Europe and we are the industry leader in online sales,” said Co-Founder and Co-CEO Philippe de Chanville. The company has been profitable for a number of years, especially in France. In 2020 alone, the company’s gross sales doubled to 1.2 billion euros (1.42 billion US dollars at today’s rate).
So why did the company make the increase since it is already in a strong position to replicate the same model in other European markets? Because they could and because they didn’t need it. With a high valuation, ManoMano could raise quite a lot of cash without having to sell a significant portion of its equity.
In addition to France, the startup is active in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain.
ManoMano sells products to hobbyists and with ManoManoPro is also targeting the B2B market. In France it already works well with very small teams (1 to 5 employees) and the company is expanding this offer to Spain and Italy.
In addition, the startup will invest more in its product and build a better logistics infrastructure. “For the logistics part, we work with external logistics companies – we are a technology company,” said co-founder and co-CEO Christian Raisson.
ManoMano has no warehouse of its own and no inventory. Because of this, ManoMano plans to hire 1,000 people over the next 18 months, and most of them will be tech profiles.
Although ManoMano has 7 million customers, home improvement and gardening items are still mainly sold in brick and mortar stores. The startup is aware that it’s not just about offering the best products at good prices.
ManoMano works with consultants (or manodvisors) so that experts can provide advice when clients need advice. In total, customers initiated 2.3 million conversations with consultants in 2020. Referrals and advice will be the key to gaining market share. And the company is now well capitalized to innovate on this front and differentiate itself from other ecommerce platforms.
