Ulverston-based Fruugo wins King's Award for Enterprise

Fruugo is an online marketplace that allows transactions between 42 countries, 31 currencies and 28 languages. It automatically converts a product into the buyer's currency and the listing into their language. 

The mission statement outlined on their website is 'to enable shoppers everywhere to buy from retailers anywhere.' 

Dominic Allonby from Fruugo (Image: Newsquest)

Fruugo received the award at the Cumbria Crystal factory in Ulverston. The company makes the trophies that are awarded to recipients of the King's Award around the UK.

The King's Award celebrates the success of outstanding UK businesses.

The ceremony was attended by Dominic Allonby and Darren Naylor, the founders of Fruugo, and Sam Rayner, the deputy lieutenant of Cumbria, who represents the King in the county. The business employs 200 people and serves over 23 million customers around the world.

Mr Rayner said over the last 15 years Mr Allonby and his team had created a 'fast-growing, profitable, truly global e-commerce business.' 

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"Fruugo's immensely complex technology currently links over 5,000 international retailers in multiple countries with shoppers in numerous other major countries around the world. There are now over 120 million products for sale via Fruugo," he said. 

"A Swedish shopper can buy the goods of an Australian retailer just as easily as a Japanese shopper can buy the goods of an Italian retailer,

"Essentially Fruugo connects everyone and everything so that global shopping feels 'localised'."

The business has regularly featured in Financial Times and The Sunday Times awards for fastest-growing private companies in Europe and the UK over the last few years. 

It won the same award and category last year after generating revenues above £10m in 2020.