Rob Pierre, the co-founder and former CEO of performance marketing shop Jellyfish, has joined furniture comparison platform Ufurnish.com as advisor and investor.
He is investing £500,000 into Ufurnish and will now be part of the advisory board, tasked with scaling the business.
Speaking to The Media Leader, Deirdre Mc Gettrick, co-founder of Ufurnish, said that bringing someone with a media background, as well as a successful founder who has exited a business, was “hugely important”.
Mc Gettrick explained that, despite Jellyfish and Ufurnish being in different sectors, they shared a lot of learnings and challenges, such as market conditions and funding.
The appointment of Pierre would help Ufurnish understand the “ever-evolving media landscape opportunities”, particularly given misconceptions that it is a furniture company rather than a search and discovery engine.
Pierre’s expertise will also help in other areas, Mc Gettrick added: “If you think about where we are now versus a decade ago, the spending challenges are completely different for people, retailers. And I suppose the other element is what changes [are] coming down the line as well with AI, regulatory changes etc — how that’s all going to impact spend and how we can better adapt our solutions and our business.”
She said that the goals for Ufurnish this year are focused around three pillars of growth: “massively building awareness” with consumers, expanding the supply of retailers and developing new product choices on the platform.
Jellyfish was founded in 2005 and sold to The Brandtech Group in June 2023.
Ufurnish has raised more than £5m since its launch in 2020 and is planning a further investment round in 2024. It was founded by Mc Gettrick and Ray Wright.
