Fat Llama

What Fat Llama does

Fat Llama, now operating as Hygglo following a 2024 rebrand, is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace founded in 2016 that enables individuals to lend and borrow physical items within their local area. The platform serves both individual consumers seeking affordable temporary access to goods and professionals — photographers, filmmakers, event organizers — who require expensive equipment without bearing the cost of ownership. Headquartered in London and registered in St Albans (Hygglo Ltd, UK company number 09927338), the company operates across seven countries with a primary footprint in the UK and Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway) and has facilitated over one million cumulative rentals.

The platform's core technology is a two-sided marketplace connecting item owners with renters, built around three notable components: a user verification system, a guarantee/trust protection scheme covering both lenders and borrowers, and location-and-time based search across web, iOS, and Android clients. Rental inventory spans diverse categories including film and photography equipment, power tools, electronics, party supplies, outdoor gear, and musical instruments, with publicly visible daily rental rates typically ranging from £3 to £50 depending on category and item value.

The business model is transaction-based: the platform charges a take rate/commission on completed rentals between lenders and borrowers, with pay-as-you-go billing and no subscription tier evident. Go-to-market is product-led growth via self-serve listings on web and mobile apps, supported by organic social (Facebook, Instagram), content/blog marketing, and user testimonial loops. Customer segmentation is horizontal across consumer and professional/prosumer use cases. The company is privately held and has raised approximately $12–13 million in cumulative funding across rounds from 2016–2018, with notable investors including Blossom Capital, Atomico, Y Combinator, Greylock, and 645 Ventures.

Name

Fat Llama

Legal name

Hygglo Ltd

Website

https://fatllama.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Hygglo (formerly Fat Llama) is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace founded in 2016 that enables individual consumers and professionals across seven countries to lend and borrow physical items locally, with over one million lifetime rentals facilitated.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Rental Transaction Fees: Platform charges fees on rental transactions between lenders and borrowers. Users pay daily rental rates for items (e.g., £3-50/day depending on item value and category). The platform takes a commission on each completed rental transaction.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Fat Llama (now operating as Hygglo UK) is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace that enables individuals to lend their unused items and borrow items from others nearby. Listings span film and photography equipment, power tools, electronics, party supplies, outdoor gear, and musical instruments, rented at daily rates with the platform taking a commission on each transaction. The service is delivered via a website and native iOS/Android applications and includes user verification and guarantee protection.

Product overview

Hygglo UK (formerly Fat Llama) operates as a unified peer-to-peer rental marketplace platform. The platform enables users to list their unused items for rent and borrow items from others in their area. The service covers diverse rental categories including film and photography equipment, power tools, electronics, outdoor gear, musical instruments, and party supplies. Users can search for items by location and date, browse popular categories, and rent items at daily rates. The platform also offers mobile apps for iOS and Android. The company has facilitated over a million rentals across seven countries, positioning itself as an environmentally-conscious alternative to ownership.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Hygglo UK (formerly Fat Llama) A peer-to-peer rental marketplace enabling users to list unused items for rent and borrow items from others nearby, covering categories including film and photography equipment, power tools, electronics, party supplies, outdoor gear, and musical instruments. Users search by location and date and rent at daily rates.

Quantifiable outcome

• 60% cheaper to rent through Hygglo than purchasing items
• +1 more outcomes

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• KitSplit: US-based peer-to-peer rental marketplace for film and photography equipment — a category that is among the highest-AOV verticals on Hygglo UK, making it a strong direct competitor in the professional creator segment.
• Loanables: US-based peer-to-peer rental marketplace covering tools, electronics, sports and event equipment. Shares the horizontal, multi-category C2C rental model that defines Fat Llama/Hygglo.
• Peerby: Dutch peer-to-peer rental marketplace for everyday items, tools and electronics. Closely mirrors Fat Llama/Hygglo's horizontal, neighborhood-driven model and competes in the Benelux/Nordic regional cluster.
• Hurr: UK-based peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace. Operates a similar consumer-to-consumer lending model with verification and protection, directly overlapping with Fat Llama/Hygglo in the UK fashion and accessories category.
• Grover: Berlin-based consumer electronics and gadgets rental subscription platform. Targets the same electronics-rental use case as Hygglo across Europe but with a subscription model and significantly deeper capital.
• Outdoorsy: North American peer-to-peer marketplace for RVs and outdoor adventure gear. Comparable in operating a trust-and-insurance-backed C2C rental marketplace for high-value physical goods.

Regional players

• Rentomojo: India-based online rental platform for furniture, appliances and electronics. Operates a comparable B2C-style rental marketplace in a different geography, useful for benchmarking category-specific rental unit economics.

Broad incumbents

• Getaround: Peer-to-peer car-sharing platform with instant-book and connected-car technology. Useful comparable for assessing marketplace trust, insurance and utilization dynamics at scale.
• Rent the Runway: US fashion rental pioneer operating a curated, inventory-owning rental model. Broader incumbent in consumer rental that has shaped category expectations around logistics, cleaning and turnaround.
• Turo: Largest peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace. Operates a much larger version of the trust-and-insurance-backed C2C rental model that Fat Llama applies to general goods.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/wearehygglo
• Instagraminstagram.com/we_are_hygglo
• Xx.com/fatllamaHQ

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds6 records

Investors8 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Fat Llama