I co-founded Raffolux in 2018 after studying for an Economics degree at the University of Warwick and initially starting out my career in the world of law. I was spurred on by the realisation that I could combine my love of giving back with offering people the chance to win life-changing prizes. Through this premise, I also identified a unique way in which I could build consumer trust in the gambling industry.

At the time of our launch in 2019, Raffolux was the UK’s first purpose-built, digital raffling platform with a charity mission. In the run-up to this moment, my co-founder Harry and I had two goals in mind. The first was to disrupt the traditional lottery model by allowing people to win a range of innovative prizes outside of just cash, with a guaranteed winner for each draw. Secondly, we were determined to make donating to your favourite charity more fun.

After familiarising ourselves with all of the necessary legislation we kicked things off in March 2019. As every founder will know, the first year of running a business is often the most challenging. We certainly experienced our share of highs and lows during this time. As well as focusing on building up our membership we also spent this time cementing our relationships with brand and charity partners.

Due to this foundational work that we put in, we were able to secure over 20 long-term charity partnerships with organisations including Oxfam, Hospice UK and Great Ormond Street Hospital. We also forged strong working relationships with some of the UK’s most successful premium brands, from Virgin Experiences and Red Letter Days to John Lewis and Dyson. This has proved to be a mutually beneficial partnership and our research has found that 20% of our customers have purchased a product they've seen on our website. 

Whether it’s the holiday of a lifetime or having a chance to own the latest technology, we believe that everyone deserves the chance to win something amazing. For us, it quickly became apparent that there was a considerable appetite from consumers for a digital raffle experience like ours. After all, everyone understands how raffles work so why not move the process online for people to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes? 

For any start-up, your first year is often marked by a series of trials and errors. At Raffolux we were no different. We experienced a steep learning curve when it came to marketing. Our first few years in operation gave us a chance to ruthlessly optimise our processes as well as build a team of experts which included a very experienced Board of Directors who had formerly headed up digital marketing for the likes of Danone and Reckitt.

Following an anti-climatic first few months, we began to devise a clear digital marketing strategy which would have a sizeable spend behind it. We put out digital adverts on eBay and focused our attention on Facebook after we learnt that an overwhelming majority of our target audience was the most active there. Like many businesses, we quickly pivoted when it became obvious that some tools were less effective than others. 

In our second year, we were able to grow our membership to the hundreds of thousands and it was a personal highlight to end the year with a revenue of over £3.5 million. During this time the continued government lockdowns had been a key factor as more and more people were attracted to our website and sought out new ways to have fun whilst at home. Since then we’ve continued to capitalise on this success with our most recent public post-money valuation of £11 million being achieved in May 2021. 

The future looks bright for Raffolux as we continue to scale our offering and make thousands of more Brits lucky winners. I couldn’t be happier that our first four years have seen us grow into a community of over 100,000 and raise over half a million pounds for charities in the process. As we look ahead to the coming years we aim to ensure that we are making Raffolux a truly mainstream digital experience for everyone to enjoy.

This will include growing brand awareness both here in the UK and abroad where we aim to launch the platform in several new markets. Make sure you follow us on this journey!