A supplier of personalised keepsakes is expected to grow following a £300,000 investment from Finance Yorkshire.
Brough-based The Lovely Gift Group, which includes several retail brands, plans to use the funds to purchase new machinery, stock and hire five new staff in a bid to break into the funeral care and pet memorial markets. The firm is supplying its keepsake products 'Angels, Wings & Feathers' to funeral care providers and its 'Oh So Precious' range is targeted at the pet and veterinary sectors.
Founder Helen Davies launched the business in 2015 following her experience of giving birth to premature twins who spent 10 weeks in Hull Royal Infirmary's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The group, which offers items such as comfort bears incorporating tins for cremation ashes, has since expanded and is now targeting £750,000 turnover this year.
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Ms Davies said: "It was such a special time in the NICU and I wanted to treasure and remember it. The nurses were giving me mementoes like the twins’ oxygen masks but I didn’t have a keepsake box to put them in. My experience gave me the germ of an idea for a keepsake business to give people innovative ideas to display or protect special items from people, places or occasions from all through life, that bring them a lot of comfort."
When pandemic restrictions were brought in, the group faced the absence of celebratory events such as weddings and parties. Ms Davies added: "We were able to quickly react by investing in a high-quality printer and vinyl cutter to start making post-box keepsakes for people to send during lockdown with messages of comfort, gratitude and cheer.
"That gave us the confidence to continue with our own designs and production which had always been the ambition. With creative and innovative ideas, we felt our own products would stand out in the keepsake marketplace and we are delighted with initial feedback from stockists."
The capital injection from Finance Yorkshire's Seedcorn Fund will be used to buy engraves, cutters and printers as the firm gears up to move into the wholesale business.
Alex McWhirter, chief executive at Finance Yorkshire, said: "Helen and her team at The Lovely Gift Group have established a strong range of products for several sectors where demand is growing for keepsakes and memorial items. The innovative ideas and inventive aspects of their growing product range is nothing short of impressive. Our Seedcorn Fund is ideally placed to support SMEs like The Lovely Gift Group to help them to achieve their growth ambitions and create jobs. Finance Yorkshire looks forward to supporting The Lovely Gift Group in this exciting new chapter for the business."
Finance Yorkshire’s Seedcorn Fund is part of its regional fund which is expected to provide more than £50m to SMEs over the next five years. Investment is also available from its Growth Fund as well as through large and small business loans.
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