£2.2M seed funding

The online tech and e-commerce start-up Boulevard has raised £2.2 million in seed funding from the early and growth-stage venture capital company Fuel Ventures.

The funding will help the business expand and diversify. It will also focus on refining and advancing its Eiger System, its proprietary platform that links suppliers, product management and other technologies.

Mark Pearson, managing partner at Fuel Ventures said: “It’s clear from Boulevard’s unique approach, the building of their own end-to-end supply chain software and their impressive growth that they know how to be the big sellers on these platforms and continually adapting with the times. The decision to invest in Boulevard was an easy one for us: it is set to become a serious player among the world’s fastest-growing marketplaces.”

Founded in 2016 by young entrepreneur Dom Portman the company, formerly known as Fancy Dress Worldwide, became one of the most successful online retailers of costumes and partywares within just a few years.

In 2020, the company began its diversification

Boulevard has raised more than £2M to grow into multiple product categories with a renewed focus on trading across online marketplaces worldwide. As a result of the successful launch of new products across categories such as arts and crafts, stationery, pets, toys and games and more, the company re-branded to become Boulevard, helped by Worcester-based design agency Big Helping.

Dominic Portman, Founder and Managing Director of Boulevard, said: “We started life as a single category e-commerce business that we quickly scaled through the power of our own tech, Eiger.”

“The lessons we learnt on how to sell online as an e-commerce business opened up our expertise to help others to do the same. We’re now planning on advancing our Eiger platform to enable us to break into new markets and become a leading, global online marketplace super-seller.”

Redditch company secures contract extension with Ipsos MORI for NHS GP Patient Survey

Communications company Adare SEC has been awarded a threeyear contract extension with Ipsos MORI for processing of the annual NHS GP Patient Survey.

The survey, conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the NHS each year, provides information on patients’ overall experience of primary care services and their overall experience of accessing these services.

Adare SEC provides an integrated service to Ipsos MORI, from the printing of all outbound surveys to the capture and digitalisation of incoming completed questionnaires.

The latest survey consisted of around 2.41 million postal questionnaires sent out to adults registered with GP practices in England between January and the end of March 2021. Around 850,000 patients completed and returned a questionnaire, resulting in a national response rate of 35.3 per cent.

Allan Rowan, Chief Commercial Officer, Adare SEC, said: “Our relationship with Ipsos MORI is longstanding and we take great pride in assisting them with their essential work on behalf of the NHS.”

Dr Rachel Williams, Research Director, Ipsos MORI, added: “Adare SEC has a deep understanding of our business model and is critical to the continued success of the survey programme and we look forward to further developing our working relationship.”