Kingfisher plc has announced the acquisition of French home improvement services marketplace, NeedHelp, for €10m.
NeedHelp is a B2B2C online platform which connects customers who need home improvement help, either in-store or online, with vetted professional tradespeople and other skilled experts.
As part of the transaction, Guillaume de Kergariou, the founder of NeedHelp, has reinvested proceeds from the sale in a 20 per cent interest in the business, resulting in Kingfisher owning 80 per cent.
According to Kingfisher, the acquisition represents an “important step forward” for one of its key priorities under its recently announced ‘Powered by Kingfisher’ strategy: to build a mobile-first and service-orientated customer experience.
NeedHelp was founded in France in 2014 by Guillaume de Kergariou, who will continue as CEO. While most of its business is currently in France, NeedHelp also operates in Switzerland and has recently expanded into Germany, Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands. NeedHelp already provides its services to customers in more than 500 stores including Kingfisher’s French businesses, Castorama and Brico Dépôt, and to a growing number of leading home improvement retailers.
NeedHelp has tripled its revenue every year since launch. In 2020 the number of jobs completed through its platform is set to reach 58,000. With more people seeking to improve their homes since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the demand for NeedHelp has accelerated with its monthly revenue doubling after the first lockdown period, the company says.
Along with developing NeedHelp’s business in Europe with existing and new retail partners, Kingfisher also plans to roll out the platform in the UK and Poland. In the UK, NeedHelp will be able to support B&Q’s customers who need assistance with their home improvement projects, as well as cooperate with Screwfix’s customer base of trade professionals. NeedHelp will continue to operate as an independent company and will seek to offer its installation capabilities to retail customers across the Home Improvement sector, through its open architecture model.
Commenting on the acquisition, Thierry Garnier, Kingfisher’s CEO, said: “To serve customers effectively today, we need to be more digital and service orientated, while leveraging our strong store assets. Online services marketplaces are key to the future of home improvement retail and NeedHelp is an established and fast-growing player in this arena. Its acquisition accelerates our digital capabilities and extends the services that we can provide our customers – two central components of our future growth strategy.”
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