Automotive industry heavyweight Vehicle Preparation Services Group Ltd (VPS) has launched a £750k Crowdcube campaign to raise capital for its rapidly-growing number plate manufacturing site.
VPS Group, which operates in Bristol, Southampton, Swindon, Sheerness and Killingholme, employs 160 people and turned over £5.1m in 2017.
The business was acquired by serial entrepreneur Jordan Daykin in January this year for £5m, with plans to raise funds to capitalise on the booming number plate market. The capital raised from this crowdfunding round will be used to further ramp up production to ensure high quality delivery for key customers.
Founded in 2004, VPS Group was originally established to supply temporary labour to vehicle manufacturers. Since making a name for itself as a leading contract supplier for the automotive sector, the business has expanded and now has five main revenue streams, including a growing number plate manufacturing arm.
In the last two years VPS Group has reinvested profits into driving growth, including a £1.5m investment in a streamline site which will manufacture up to 2.3million number plates per year, in what is a £300m market producing over 20m plates every year. VPS Group already supplies 120,000 number plates to its current customer base, which includes Toyota, Isuzu Motors and GBA Group.
With one in 12 cars cloned in the UK each year, and over 100,000 number plates stolen, a recent change in legislation means it is now illegal to sell number plates online. While this has heavily impacted the online retail market, VPS Group has identified a unique way of selling plates online which meets the DVLA’s requirements, and in doing so, has created bespoke software to run checks and crack down on stolen number plates and car cloning.
Daykin (pictured during his appearance on Dragons’ Den) has been on the VPS Group board as a Non-Executive Director for two years, offering strategic advice to the company his father originally founded in 2004. As well as aiming to sell 1 million number plates in 2018, Daykin has ambitions this year to grow VPS Group’s labour supply nationally and make use of its extensive staffing database to grow its recruitment offering.
CEO of VPS Group Ltd, Jordan Daykin, said: “We’re delighted to launch this funding round with Crowdcube. I have always been a believer of involving core customers in my business ventures, and I’m pleased to be able to share the growth of VPS Group with the public as we go from strength to strength.”
