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Top 25 Social Shopping Companies in the UK | 2026

Lily Ruaah,
 26 June 2026

UK social shopping companies have raised £3.43b in equity to date, though that headline conceals an extraordinary concentration: a single company, DAZN, accounts for nearly 89% of it. Funding peaked at £1.41b in 2021 on the back of one of DAZN’s mega-rounds, and 86% of all the capital the sector has ever raised has arrived since the start of 2020.

We’ve ranked the top 25 social shopping companies by total equity raised (all data sourced from the Beauhurst platform).

An overview of the social shopping sector

Social shopping covers companies that blend e-commerce with social interaction — platforms where buying is driven by community, recommendation, live video, resale, or peer-to-peer exchange rather than a conventional storefront. In practice the UK sector is a small, tightly defined niche spanning fashion resale and rental, live-stream and social commerce, and discovery tools built around reviews and AI personalisation. The classification overlaps heavily with application software, online marketplaces, and social media, and several of its members are tagged across all three.

There are just 42 active social shopping companies in the UK, a figure that has roughly doubled over the past decade from 20 at the end of 2015 but remains tiny by any measure. Together they report £5.31b in turnover and employ an estimated 7,400 people — though, as with funding, those totals are overwhelmingly a function of DAZN’s scale. The £3.43b raised makes this comfortably the smallest sector Beauhurst tracks by equity, and stripping out its dominant player leaves a field that has collectively raised under £400m.

Key findings

  • The sector is led by DAZN, the London sports-streaming and betting platform, which has raised £3.04b — an astonishing 88.6% of all the equity raised across the sector. That is by far the highest share held by any number-one company Beauhurst tracks, eclipsing the previous extremes of EventTech’s DICE (53%) and FemTech’s Flo Health (43%). DAZN’s classification here rests on its social, merchandising, and online-retail features, but in practice it is a media giant sitting atop an otherwise modest field, and its presence distorts every sector-level figure.
  • Beneath DAZN the genuine social-commerce names are far smaller. The next four are Lyst (£122m, fashion discovery and aggregation), Depop (£77.0m, Gen-Z resale marketplace), TruRating (£43.9m, point-of-sale customer reviews), and Tilt (£36.3m, live-stream shopping). The top five together hold 96.8% of the sector — but excluding DAZN, the entire rest of the top 25 has raised just £385m between them, and the median company on the list has raised only single-digit millions.
  • Geographically, the sector is heavily London-centric: 17 of the top 25 are based in the capital, with the remainder thinly spread across just six regions in total — the South East (three), the East of England (two), and one each in the South West, the East of Scotland, and the North West. That narrow footprint reflects how small and consumer-internet-focused the sector is, clustering where consumer-tech talent and venture capital concentrate.
  • By stage of evolution the top 25 skews early: 13 are venture-stage, against just four established and two seed-stage. The sector also shows real churn for its size — the top 25 alone contains two dead companies and three that have exited, and across the wider universe of 40 staged companies the mortality rate is 10%, among the highest Beauhurst records. Social shopping is a hits-driven niche where most entrants stay small, several fail, and a rare few are acquired.

Methodology

To produce this list, we identified all companies that are:
  • Headquartered in the UK
  • Operating in the ‘Social shopping’ Beauhurst industry classification
  • Listed as ‘Active’ on Companies House

We’ve then ranked these companies by total equity raised.

To access the data behind this article, and to discover thousands of other ambitious companies, you’ll need to be a Beauhurst subscriber.

All data is correct as of 23 June 2026.

Top 25 social shopping companies in the UK

10.

Total amount raised: £185m
Total equity rounds: 5
Established: 2014
Location: Oxford

Oxa develops software designed to power driverless vehicles, with technology that uses features such as cameras and lasers in order to sense and navigate the surrounding environment. In 2023, the UK government announced that Oxa had been included in their Advanced Manufacturing Plan, setting out £150m of investment to supercharge the self-driving vehicle sector. They have received £185m to date through five rounds of fundraising, including £113m in December 2022, aimed at selling its software to a wider range of industries and growing worldwide.

9. Callsign

Total amount raised: £215m
Total equity rounds: 5
Established: 2010
Location: City of London

Focusing on creating smooth customer interactions, AI company Callsign has produced technology for passive authentication, fraud prevention, and intelligence. Its proprietary technology uses artificial intelligence to mimic how humans recognise each other. In October 2021, Visa choseCallsign as their preferred behavioural biometric and device intelligence identity partner across Europe. Callsign is the world’s fastest-growing behavioural authentication and intelligence company. It has raised a total of £215m in investment, across five funding rounds. The company’s main investors include JP Morgan, AllegisCyber, and NightDragon Security.

8. Lendable

Total amount raised: £216m
Total equity rounds: 7
Established: 2014
Location: Hackney

Lendable is a fintech company developing a peer-to-peer lending platform for consumer finance. The company’s AI software matches users with appropriate investors, leveraging artificial intelligence and automated underwriting to quickly approve loans. Lendable also offers loans to those with lower credit scores to provide a fairer borrowing solution. Lendable has raised £216m, across seven funding rounds, since 2014. It’s expanded to offices in New York, Nairobi, and Singapore, and has featured in several high growth lists: 2022’s FT 1000, the Deloitte Fast 50 in both 2019 and 2020, and the Fast Tech Track 100, also in 2019 and 2020. Additionally, in 2018, Lendable participated in Addleshaw Goddard’s AG Elevate accelerator programme for scaling fintech startups.

7. Huma

Total amount raised: £236m
Total equity rounds: 10
Established: 2011
Location: Westminster

​​Huma (previously Medopad) is developing a web-based portal for hospitals and healthcare professionals to contain, manage, and collect health records. This data is then accessible to patients through a mobile app. Alongside its main goal of managing healthcare data, Huma also works on digital health insights and has developed wearable technology to detect digital biomarkers and assess health in real-time. Huma has been working with many organisations around the world, including the NHS, to monitor COVID-19 patients remotely. The AI company has secured £236m in fundraisings, from investors including Healthbox, Nexus Investments, Bayer, and NWS Holdings. In 2020, the company acquired two businesses: stress and productivity biometric startup BioBeats, and Tarilian, an optoelectronic sensor company that makes technology for measuring blood pressure and heart monitoring. They have since acquired Alcedis, developers of a platform for the digitisation of clinical trials that can be integrated with third-party systems, and iPLATO, developers of an app that improves patients’ access to GP practices through an online booking system, and provides a platform for healthcare campaigns.

6. Patsnap

Total amount raised: £251m
Total equity rounds: 4
Established: 2007
Location: Southwark

Patsnap has created a web-based platform to help clients assess intellectual property patents, with access to patent expiry dates, licensing, renewal, and legal information for tech companies. The lawtech company’s platform is powered by artificial intelligence algorithms and natural language processing, to parse patents and IP, as well as extract and cross-match critical information. It can even analyse more complex documents, like clinical trials, chemical structures patents, and litigation records. Patsnap has over 10k customers in over 50 countries, including big names like Tesla, Dyson, and NASA. So far, the company has secured £251m in investment, across four funding rounds.

5. Quantexa

Total amount raised: £286m
Total equity rounds: 6
Established: 2016
Location: Lambeth

Quantexa is a cybersecurity firm that develops AI technology to secure organisations’ data and flag illegal activity. It works closely with industries that handle large datasets (such as banking, e-commerce, and the public sector), to create analytical models that uncover data risk, reveal opportunities, and enhance decision making. The company is backed by AlbionVC, Dawn Capital, HSBC Enterprise Fund, and Accenture, among others. In its latest funding round, Quantexa raised £104m in investment. This took the company’s total fundraisings to £286m. Quantexa has attended both the Microsoft ScaleUp accelerator and Tech Nation’s Future Fifty accelerator. It has also appeared on several high-growth lists, including The Telegraph’s Tech Hot 100, Fast Track’s Tech Track 100, InsurTech 100, and the 2021 edition of The Regtech 100.

4. Gousto

Total amount raised: £321m
Total equity rounds: 14
Established: 2012
Location: Shepherds Bush

Gousto is a meal kit delivery service that provides exact ingredients and portions to customers with instructions on how to prepare the dish. The food tech unicorn, backed by celebrity fitness coach, Joe Wicks, and Japanese investment giant SoftBank, is powered by AI, a technology used since its founding. They have received £321m in funding to date, through 14 rounds of funding. The most recent of these was in February 2023, which saw £50m invested to support them during times of economic uncertainty. Their post-money valuation was listed as £239m. They have been named on a number of high-growth lists, including the FT 1000, Fast Track Tech Track 100, and Top 100 – Britain’s Fastest Growing Businesses. They also attended the Future Fifty accelerator in 2017.

3. Cera

Total amount raised: £366m
Total equity rounds: 9
Established: 2015
Location: Islington

Cera provides homecare, telehealth consultations, and prescription services, which can be managed through a mobile app, which also allows users to book appointments with nurses on demand. To date, they have secured £366m through nine rounds of fundraising. In August 2022, they raised £81.3m to invest in increasing their capacity to help more patients, a project that was invested into by 8090 Partners, Evolve Healthcare Partners, Guinness Ventures, and Jane Street, amongst others. They have attended DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, PwC Scale Programmes, and Govstart.

2. Thought Machine

Total amount raised: £392m
Total equity rounds: 8
Established: 2011
Location: Islington

Thought Machine develops fintech software Vault, which enables banks and financial services providers to centrally manage a range of products. Its core banking platforms can be used to run day-to-day operations, improving the cost, speed, and adaptability of legacy systems. Thought Machine’s software is accessed through an API and has a large artificial intelligence component. The AI company has raised £398m in growth capital so far, across seven funding rounds, with the likes of Molten Ventures (previously Draper Esprit), IQ Capital, Playfair Capital, and British Patient Capital. Its most recent fundraising, secured in July 2020, saw the company valued at £221m pre-money. Alongside new investors ING Ventures, JP Morgan Chase Strategic Investments, and Standard Charter Investments, this latest raise also saw Thought Machine reach unicorn status.

1. Graphcore

Total amount raised: £528m
Total equity rounds: 9
Established: 2016
Location: City of Bristol

Graphcore operates in the semiconductor processing chip industry, developing and manufacturing chips made specifically to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks. Graphcore’s chips use Intelligence Process Unit (IPU) technology, housing 1,472 separate IPU-Cores, capable of executing 8,832 separate parallel computing threads. The Bristol-based AI startup has grown from strength to strength since 2016, with a total of nine funding rounds under its belt, which saw it reach unicorn status after just four years of trading. Graphcore has raised more than half a billion pounds in investment, and is partnered with large tech companies such as Microsoft and Dell Technologies. The company has offices in London, Cambridge, Oslo, Beijing, Seoul, and across the US.
Last Updated: 17 July 2026
# Company Region Stage Employees Total Raised
1 DAZN London Established >1000 £3,036,910,160

DAZN

DAZN operates a media platform which aims to allow users to watch and bet on live sports, purchase merchandise and communicate with other fans.

https://dazngroup.com/
Industries Application software Betting and gambling Data provision and analysis Marketing, branding and advertising Online retailing Social media Sporting events and activities Video content (including pre- and post-production)
2 Lyst London Established 100-249 £121,643,370

Lyst

Lyst operates a social shopping site and mobile app that aims to help users find fashion items from various brands.

https://www.lyst.com/
Industries Application software Clothes Online marketplace Online retailing
3 Depop South West Established 250-499 £76,987,243

Depop

Depop has created an online marketplace app that allows its users to upload a photo of any item they wish to sell, as well as following other users, brands and shops.

https://www.depop.com/
Industries Application software Online marketplace
4 TruRating East of England Growth 50-99 £43,914,392

TruRating

TruRating develops technology that allows customers to review their experience on the payment terminal when they pay the bill.

https://trurating.com/
Industries Application software Customer support Data provision and analysis
5 Tilt London Venture 50-99 £36,334,938

Tilt

Tilt develops a mobile app that allows buyers and sellers to engage directly through real-time streams and online auctions.

https://www.tilt.app/
Industries Application software Auctioneering Clothes Marketing, branding and advertising Online marketplace Online retailing Payment processing Social media Video content (including pre- and post-production)
6 WeShop London Venture 25-49 £18,178,241

WeShop

WeShop developed a web application that allows users to set up their own online stores and to sell to friends and connections via social networks.

https://we.shop/
Industries Application software Online marketplace Rewards, loyalty schemes and vouchers
7 Reevoo South East Exited 50-99 £17,062,110

Reevoo

Reevoo has developed software for customers' reviews and ratings. It provides multiple products based on this software that, it claims, help brands use their ratings to connect with customers, including integration with online and offline advertising and trends analysis.

https://www.reevoo.com/
Industries Application software Marketing, branding and advertising Market research
8 Luxury Promise London Venture 25-49 £13,930,059

Luxury Promise

Luxury Promise develops an online marketplace which allows users to buy, sell and swap pre-owned luxury goods, as well as providing live, online shopping shows.

https://luxurypromise.com/
Industries Application software Jewellery and other accessories Online marketplace Online retailing Physical retailing
9 HURR London Venture 25-49 £12,818,237

HURR

HURR operates a website where users can rent clothing from others for short periods of time.

https://www.hurrcollective.com/
Industries Application software Clothes Jewellery and other accessories Product rental and hire
10 Zesty London Exited 10-24 £8,115,170

Zesty

Zesty is developing a website on which users can find and review healthcare professionals in their area.

https://www.zesty.co.uk/
Industries Application software Data aggregation Medical doctors Online marketplace
11 Go Places London Venture 50-99 £6,034,880

Go Places

Go Places provides social media commerce management services.

https://go-places.io/
Industries Assistants, secretaries and administrative support Data management Data provision and analysis Lead generation and sales support Marketing, branding and advertising Online retailing Social media
12 Constant.Co London Venture 10-24 £5,482,556

Constant.Co

Constant.Co help retailers create shoppable content across all media.

https://www.constant.co/
Industries Application software Marketing, branding and advertising Online retailing Retail consultancy
13 Catches London Venture 10-24 £5,184,791

Catches

Catches develops a mobile app, designed to use AI technology to provide personalised fashion choices for users.

https://www.catches.ai/
Industries Application software Clothes Data management
14 My Bespoke Room London Venture 25-49 £4,223,961

My Bespoke Room

My Bespoke Room offers a remote interior design service where users upload pictures of their room onto the My Bespoke Room platform, and a designer creates a budget and interactive mood board which links to online pages where each item can be purchased.

https://www.mybespokeroom.com/
Industries Application software Interior design
15 Pasabi East of Scotland Venture 10-24 £3,982,214

Pasabi

Pasabi develops an app that allows fashion designers to detect when their designs have been counterfeited on social media platforms, including gathering evidence and identifying sources.

https://pasabi.com/
Industries Application software Clothes
16 Soreto London Venture 10-24 £2,726,261

Soreto

Soreto develops software that allows brands to pay customers to share their products via social media.

https://www.soreto.com/
Industries Application software Data provision and analysis Lead generation and sales support Marketing, branding and advertising Social media
17 FINDS South East Exited 10-24 £2,550,337

FINDS

FINDS develops a video based social shopping online marketplace where users can purchase and sell clothes based on video listings and live streaming.

https://www.finds.world/
Industries Application software Clothes
18 Quikkly South East Venture 5-9 £1,424,462

Quikkly

Quikkly has developed a product tag that, once scanned, allows smartphone users to access specific information about a product or an event; the tags also facilitate social media interaction.

https://www.quikklycodes.com/
Industries Application software Marketing, branding and advertising
19 Merx London Seed 5-9 £1,000,000

Merx

Merx develops a generative AI chatbot that can be embedded into existing messaging apps to provide sales support services for retail businesses.

https://hellomerx.com/
Industries Application software Lead generation and sales support Online retailing Social media
20 Fruugo North West Established 100-249 £759,990

Fruugo

Fruugo retails a variety of consumer goods online including sports equipment and clothing.

https://www.fruugo.co.uk/
Industries Application software Clothes Home and garden Jewellery and other accessories Online marketplace Sports equipment and apparel Toys and games
21 BeautyShelf London Seed <5 £709,989

BeautyShelf

BeautyShelf develops a social shopping app for beauty products.

https://beautyshelf.app/
Industries Application software Beauty and cosmetics Marketing, branding and advertising Online retailing Social media
22 Scoop Retail London Dead <5 £656,743

Scoop Retail

Scoop Retail is developing a service for retail businesses which aims to combine customers' online shopping experience with in-store shopping by using technologies such as customer kiosks installed in clients' shops.

http://scoopretail.com/
Industries Application software Data provision and analysis Retail consultancy
23 Voxterr London Venture <5 £630,000

Voxterr

Voxterr develops a social network that allows users to publish local businesses, make purchases online and earn commission for postings.

https://voxterr.com/
Industries Application software Online retailing Social media
24 WallBrand East of England Dead 10-24 £568,000

WallBrand

WallBrand operates as a social network and an online marketplace, focussing on social shopping.

https://wallbrand.co/
Industries Application software Online marketplace Online retailing Social media
25 So Just Shop London Venture 5-9 £538,842

So Just Shop

So Just Shop sells handmade clothing, accessories and jewellery. All products are created by women-led artisan groups.

https://sojustshop.com/
Industries Clothes Jewellery and other accessories Online retailing

The future of social shopping in the UK

Social shopping in the UK is less a single market than a cluster of experiments around one durable idea: that commerce works better when it is social, visual, and community-led. The data shows a niche that has never scaled into a broad sector — fewer than 50 active companies, most of them small — yet one that keeps attracting fresh attempts as new formats emerge. Live-stream shopping, resale, and AI-driven discovery have each had their moment, and the arrival of generative AI assistants is opening another. The challenge has always been the same: turning social engagement into durable, profitable transaction volume against platforms like Instagram and TikTok that increasingly build shopping in natively.

Within the top 25, three clusters capture where the energy sits. Resale and circular fashion is the most established theme, with Depop (£77.0m), Luxury Promise (£13.9m), HURR (£12.8m), and So Just Shop (£0.5m) building marketplaces for pre-owned, rented, and ethically made goods. A live-stream and social-commerce cluster is chasing the format that has reshaped retail in Asia, led by Tilt (£36.3m), WeShop (£18.2m), Go Places (£6.0m), and FINDS (£2.6m). And a discovery, reviews, and AI-personalisation group spans Lyst (£122m), TruRating (£43.9m), Reevoo (£17.1m), Catches (£5.2m), and the generative-AI newcomer Merx (£1.0m).

With this in mind, it’s possible that — depending on whether UK consumers adopt live-stream shopping as enthusiastically as Asian markets have, whether resale’s circular-economy momentum keeps drawing capital, and whether generative AI lets small players compete with the native commerce tools of the social-media giants — social shopping could either consolidate around a few breakout names or remain a perennial proving ground of small, short-lived experiments. The sector’s high mortality rate and tiny scale point towards the latter, but the success of Depop’s resale model and the rapid emergence of AI-native entrants are reminders that the format can still produce winners. The next consumer-behaviour shift will decide whether this niche finally scales or stays a footnote dominated by a single outlier.

FAQ

The top 25 are led by DAZN, Lyst, Depop, TruRating, and Tilt, followed by a field of fashion-resale, live-stream commerce, and discovery businesses. The full ranking of all 25 companies, with funding figures and company profiles, is available above and in full on the Beauhurst platform.

Companies are ranked by total equity raised — the cumulative amount of investment they have secured through equity fundraisings over their lifetime, as recorded on the Beauhurst platform.

The top 25 companies have together raised £3.42b, which is virtually the entire sector total of £3.43b. However, a single company, DAZN, accounts for £3.04b of that, meaning the rest of the top 25 has raised under £400m between them.

Social shopping refers to e-commerce that is driven by social interaction — platforms built around community, recommendation, live video, resale, or peer-to-peer exchange rather than a traditional online store. In the UK it spans fashion resale and rental, live-stream commerce, and review and discovery tools.

London dominates with 17 of the top 25 companies. The remainder are spread across just six regions in total, including the South East and the East of England.

Modestly. The number of active social shopping companies has roughly doubled over the past decade to 42, but it remains a very small niche, and most of its recent funding total reflects a handful of large rounds raised by one company rather than broad-based growth.

The sector spans fashion resale and rental marketplaces, live-stream and social commerce platforms, peer-to-peer selling apps, and discovery tools built around reviews, recommendations, and AI personalisation.

The data is drawn live from the Beauhurst platform, which is updated continuously as new fundraisings, company information, and Companies House filings are recorded.

The data is drawn live from the Beauhurst platform, which is updated continuously as new fundraisings, company information, and Companies House filings are recorded.

All figures are sourced from the Beauhurst platform, which tracks the UK’s companies using data from Companies House, regulatory filings, news sources, and direct company information.

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