Darts Corner
Darts Corner is a Bolton based specialist e-commerce business, selling darts and associated equipment. The business has built a market leading reputation for being the go-to provider of darts and related accessories in its core domestic and European markets whilst continuing to expand rapidly further afield. Darts Corner currently sells products directly to consumers and to trade customers in over 100 countries worldwide. The business has recently successfully launched a number of own branded products, most notably Mission, which have quickly grown in popularity and complement Darts Corner’s already unrivalled product range.
The team at Key were passionate about our business from the start and shared my vision for the future. We are delighted to welcome Key into our business and look forward to working with the team as we continue this exciting journey.
Working with Darts Corner...
Investment process
We invested £7 million to fund a partial equity release to the founders alongside an investment into the business to support future growth. Our investment thesis was to support the evolution of Darts Corner’s own brand, Mission, and to accelerate its international expansion.
Growth process
Our investment in Darts Corner focussed on the business’ platform initially, we supported a change to the warehouse management system to reduce delivery times and improve efficiencies, secured a trade finance facility to improve working capital to ease procurement issues and introduced a process of monthly board meetings and weekly dashboards to ensure issues/opportunities are brought to light early. The team was strengthened by introducing a Finance Director and Commercial Director and we also appointed a Non-Executive Chairman, who brought a wealth of knowledge and relevant experience to the team. In order to increase revenues, it was identified that a better functioning website would be required, which was launched in late 2022, and access to supplementary product verticals to expand its customer base, which will manifest in a number of acquisitions in future.