Business Angels provide £300k investment for e-commerce business

Dow Schofield Watts Angels – the Northern ‘business angel’ network – has completed its second deal with a £300,000 investment in Miribase, the company behind the Stockport-based Shopblocks e-commerce platform.

More than 25 angel investors took part in the funding round, which will be used to accelerate Shopblocks’ revenues by investment in new sales and marketing resources.

The Shopblocks platform provides a hosted website and online shop solution for SMEs.

Shopblocks makes it possible for businesses to launch a bespoke website in an easy and cost-effective way.

It fills a gap in the market between inflexible, template-based platforms, and custom-built websites which are typically developed by digital agencies at much greater cost.

Shopblocks was conceived as a platform within a digital agency, before being spun-off as an independent company in 2015, under the control of founder and chief executive Kevin Jones.

The business now employs a team of 15 at its headquarters in Stockport.

Kevin Jones said: “We’ve had an amazing year with hundreds of new customers joining us in the past few months alone.

“Businesses across the UK are switching to Shopblocks from template-based platforms in order to get the benefits of our unique technology.

“Our mission is to become the leading website platform in the UK in the next 12 months, and in that time we’ll be exploring how to roll out the platform on a global basis.”

Dow Schofield Watts Angels now has more than 70 investors and has received applications from well over 300 tech firms since it was launched in Summer 2017.

David Smith, who heads the network, said: “Shopblocks is a fantastic solution to a major problem which we face constantly in our portfolio, and even in our own business – an affordable way of developing and maintaining your own website.

“The solution which Kevin has created is excellent, and we cannot overstate his technical ability and personal drive.

“We’re looking forward to working closely with Kevin to make a success of this investment.”