Industry | Electronics & technology repair |
---|---|
Founder | Julian Shovlin |
Headquarters | , United Kingdom |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Number of employees | 200 (2018) |
Website | ismash |
iSmash is a high-street technology repair service, specialising in fixing smartphones, tablets and computers. [1]
iSmash was founded by Irish entrepreneur, Julian Shovlin, in 2013 to provide a same-day service for common smartphone repairs. [2] The idea originated from Shovlin's own negative experience having his phone repaired, and wanting a solution for fixing damaged technology. [2] Whilst a Business and Economics student at Trinity College Dublin, Shovlin set up his first repair shop at age 19 and invested £15,000 of savings in the business. [3] [4] This was later followed by a further £900,000 investment of seed money by angel investors. [5]
The first iSmash-branded store opened on the King’s Road, London in 2013. [3] Since then, iSmash has opened 29 high street, shopping centre and train station locations across the UK, including London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Brighton and Sheffield. [6] [7] When the Trinity Leeds store was opened, it caused some confusion with an existing iPhone and iPad repair shop called iPatch [8] (founded in 2008), who deal exclusively with Apple product repairs. In Kingston upon Thames, the market for smartphone repairs, including services provided by iRepair Zone [9] (established in 2013 and specializing in iPhone and Samsung repairs), faced new competition with the entry of iSmash.
A nationwide 50-store expansion began in 2018 and as of May 2021, 31 stores are open in total. Currently the company has a 3.7/5 ratings review on careers website Glassdoor and 67% of responding employees would recommend working at iSmash to their friends and 83% approve of the CEO. [10]
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