UK Gardening Tech Startup Sproutl Nets $9M, Launches Online Marketplace

U.K. gardening startup Sproutl has rolled out a new online marketplace, a press release from Monday (July 26) said, alongside a new seed funding round for $9 million.

Sproutl is a tech startup with a goal of allowing everyone to access gardening and “get everyone to plant something.” The new online marketplace will compile products for sale from various gardening stores.

The platform will reportedly also offer advice and help to make “gardening accessible to everyone.”

Sproutl touts itself as a platform that works toward “demystifying” gardening and offers “inspiration and advice.”

The release noted that gardening in the U.K. has been seeing new growth. Stats from the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) have shown that the number of new gardeners skyrocketed by 3 million in 2020. Many of those, the HTA stats said, were younger people under the age of 45. The stats from HTA also showed that, during the lockdown, searches for plants online were seeing numbers equivalent to those for dresses, while Google stats show that the searches for gardening doubled in the past year.

The press release said that spending this year is expected to rise by 7 percent.

“You don’t need a ten-acre plot in the countryside to start gardening,” said Chief Creative Director Hollie Newton. “To be honest, you don’t even need a garden. A terrace, a balcony, a small sunny windowsill – the modern garden is a brilliant place and one that thousands of people rediscovered in lockdown. Who cares if you’ve never picked up a trowel before? This is gardening made easy. The best plants and products, sitting alongside advice, inspiration, easy-to-shop edits, and high profile limited edition collections. It’s gardening for a new generation.”

The pandemic, as it forced everyone to stay at home for much of 2020, saw a large uptick in home remodeling projects, according to online home remodeling platform Houzz. The site said there’d been a 58 percent boost for the services.