Meat alternatives brands This has closed a £15m funding round as it seeks to maintain rapid growth.
The series B round included £4.7m raised from the crowd on the Seedrs plaform last year and more than £10m from institutional investors, including BGF, Lever VC, Backed, Five Seasons Ventures, ECG Research, CJ Corporation and Kreos Capital.
It comes as the business was recently named as the UK’s fastest-growing food and drink brand, topping Alantra’s annual Fast 50 rankings thanks to two-year annual compound sales growth of 246%.
The series B investment will be used to consolidate the company’s supply chain, fund outdoor advertising campaigns, build R&D capabilities and take the brand overseas in 2023.
“We’ve managed to buck the miserable fundraising trend at the moment and close a fantastic funding round for the brand,” co-founder Andy Shovel, who set up This in 2019 with Pete Sharman, told The Grocer.
“Our investors’ confidence has predominantly come from our punchy growth and really strong R&D pipeline. We’ve also got lots of data to show we’re championing the recruitment of meat-eaters into the plant-based category, who haven’t shopped in it before.
“We’re all really excited to go from plucky SME to industry-leading powerhouse.”
Annualised revenues at the company now stand at about £24m just more than three years after launching, with sales of about £2m in January this year.
The brand recently launched This Isn’t Streaky Bacon, which the business said is already the UK’s best-selling plant-based bacon from launch.
The move follows 15 new product launches in three new categories in 2022, taking the brand into frozen, ready meals and food-to-go.
It also launched its first beef alternatives with burger and mince SKUs, reformulated its plant-based chicken pieces to give them a “more realistic” taste and texture, and unveiled a range of caramelised onion sausages.
The series B funding round follows an £11m series A round in 2021, an initial crowd raise of more than £4m in 2020 and £8.7m of seed funding.
As well as its range of products being stocked by the major grocery chains, This also supplies a growing list of foodservice partners, including Greggs and Caffe Nero.
This has climbed to become the ninth biggest meat-free brand in the UK retail category, which was worth just more than £570m in 2022, according to The Grocer’s annual Top Products Survey.
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