Our budgeted $180 million year ended in the red after the Ukraine war. Here’s how we survived

axel (Credit: courtesy of NGLM)

At the beginning of 2022, I was riding high. I had three successful furniture brands — Nordiska Galleriet (NOGA), Länna Möbler and Dusty Deco – that were on track to make $180 million that year, having grown from $5 million in 2017.

I’d founded NGLM Group in 2016, acquired a small store in Stockholm called Nordiska Galleriet, that was later re-named to NOGA (no-ga.com) outside of Sweden, and launched an e-commerce platform for it. By 2021 we’d decided to make our largest investment yet, merging all our acquired companies into one single entity.