DTC plant-based player Allplants has slashed its valuation as part of a £10m fundraising from its existing backers amid increasing pressure on the vegan category, The Grocer can reveal.
The frozen vegan ready meals brand has priced the down round at £1.61 a share – a deep discount on the previous level of £25.89 set in February 2022.
It values the company 94% lower at £9.5m, compared with £82.2m, according to the campaign information on crowdfunding platform Seedrs’ private deal room.
However, a source close to Allplants said the Seedrs information was “unclear and inaccurate”, and the “accurate and true” pre-money enterprise value accepted by the institutional and angel investors for the new round is £17.5m, down 68% from the £54.5m set before the 2021 series B raise.
The round, which is set to close this weekend, is made up of £5.4m in equity and another £4.5m of debt financing to shore up the balance sheet and provide capital to finalise an extension to Allplants’ 43,000 sq ft manufacturing kitchen, boosting capacity to 300,000 meals a week.
Evergreen investment firm Re:Food is leading the round, with its managing partner Peter Odemark taking a seat on the board, alongside VC firms Molten Ventures, Felix Capital and The Craftory. More than 500 crowd investors on Seedrs have also provided follow-on investment as part of a pre-emption campaign on the platform to prevent their holding being diluted.
Allplants – launched by Jonathan Petrides and his brother Alex in 2016 – has already raised more than £50m across several rounds, including a £38m series B raise in 2021 and £4.5m from more than 2,000 crowd backers in 2020, which was the UK’s biggest vegan crowd campaign at the time.
“Completing this new financing is a massive vote of confidence from Allplants’ investors, who are bullish on the fast-growing ‘plant curious natural food’ category, and our edge to spearhead its growth,” Petrides told The Grocer.
“Our team worked tirelessly through last year’s turbulence to turn Allplants into an omni-channel business, with obsessive focus on ensuring strong repeat rates in grocery (+44%) to match our DTC (+60%).
“Seeing many great businesses pushed to the brink in this relentless market, we’ve adapted to the reality of today’s valuation multiples to ensure Allplants is set up on a strong footing with a powerful plan driving to profitability and continuing to cook up a natural unprocessed plant-based food system for all.”
The business has accrued heavy losses over the years as it invested in its own manufacturing facility, customer acquisition, marketing and NPD.
An investor update preparing for the new raise revealed Allplants was losing £1.5m a month in January 2022, with an EBITDA loss for the year of about £10m.
However, the plant-based brand said it had reset the business in October 2022 to focus on improving EBITDA, making efficiency savings and lowering DTC marketing spend by 85% year on year in an attempt to turn a profit.
It now expects to break even by 2024 after halving monthly losses in the past six months. Revenues are projected to hit £18m next year as it builds momentum in the retail channel following launches with Ocado, Planet Organic, Zapp, Gopuff, and Budgens – with more listings planned – alongside the DTC and B2B operations.
“Allplants will grow to a profitable £70m category-leading consumer brand by 2026,” it added in the investor deck.
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