WowzaBox co-founder Joshy Jin

Chinese food meal kit startup WowzaBox has hit a £150k crowdfunding target as it eyes expansion into the retail channels.

The company is about to close a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, having overfunded to £161k at a pre-money valuation of £2.9m.

It has £675k of revenue in the 18 months to February 2024, largely through repeat online orders, with 12,000 meal boxes shipped to date.

The Newcastle-based company is looking to use half the funds to invest in machinery and R&D, with the balance on marketing, inventory and building its team.

However, it is also planning to expand its product offering into supermarkets to allow customers to purchase individual items from its range directly from shelves.

It currently boasts a range of 52 “restaurant-quality” recipes and is growing at an average quarterly growth rate of almost 30%.

WowzaBox says its in-house manufacturing process eliminates the need for preparation and cutting tools and has generated robust margins by keeping production in-house.