Ning Li to launch second online-furniture arm

Chinese businessman and former banker Ning Li is to launch a second arm to his online furniture business.

West London-based Mr Li has £2.5m backing from lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman, part of which he used to launch the furniture website made.com last year.

Mr Hoberman is supporting Mr Li through his investment fund PROfounders Capital. The fund's bankers include Bebo founder Michael Birch, and Marc Simoncini, who owns Match.com's European operations.

The made.com business cuts out the middleman in the furniture business and allows customers to pay close to wholesale prices for expensive furniture straight from the factory.

Following the success of the consumer business, which now turns over more than £2m a year, Mr Li is launching a website for business customers looking for office furniture at wholesale prices.

It will be called made.biz. The current website receives around 500,000 visits a month and sells the equivalent of one shipping container full of furniture – worth £25,000 – every day. He employs 30 people in London and China.

Mr Li grew up in China but moved to France to study when he was a teenager. He then set up a furniture business in Paris which he sold to the French group Conforama.