Cocktail delivery kit start-up Kocktail has hit a £150k crowdfunding target to help it scale the brand and support upcoming supermarket launches.
Launched in September 2020 by Emil Stickland and Andrew Hutchinson, the business raised £167k in the Seedrs campaign, valuing it at just less than £1m.
Kocktail offers one-off boxes and gifts through its DTC website, as well as a monthly subscription service.
Boxes include four new, freshly mixed cocktails – along with garnishes and info cards detailing the story behind each drink – each month as part of the ‘delivery club’ offer. The one-off gift boxes include Negroni, Old Fashioned and margarita options.
Chief cocktail curator Neil Donachie, who also owns a minority stake in the business, was previously a senior bartender at the Savoy Hotel’s Beaufort Bar, a regular in the World’s 50 Best Bars.
Kocktail generated more than £120k in revenues in its first seven months of trading, with subscriptions accounting for a proportion of the total, as demand for DTC businesses ballooned during the pandemic.
The business has started to focus more on expanding into retail, with a listing with Sainsbury’s secure for Christmas. It is also planning further expansion into Amazon and Ocado through multinational spirits distributor Hi-Spirits.
It plans to use the money raised in crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the brand and to continue to scale.
Co-founder Emil Stickland Kocktail had seen “incredible growth and interest” since launching last year. “This investment will allow us to really take it to the next level and scale up,” he said.
“We’ve had a brilliant first year from e-commerce DTC sales, but our ambition is to take Kocktail from being purely an online business and put it on shelves nationwide with year-round availability.
“The crowdfunding investment will enable us to build on interest from wider national retailers and supermarkets, with the ability to scale up production and manufacturing, without sacrificing on bar-quality taste and ingredients.”
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