The Cotswold Distillery has raised more than £1.5m in a fundraising round to keep up with higher-than-expected demand for its new whisky.
The Warwickshire distillery, which sells its premium gin and other branded spirits through Majestic Wine, Oddbins, Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols, as well as in the US and Australia, secured the money from 50 private investors who have backed the business since its launch in 2014.
Funds from the round, which was more than 50% oversubscribed, will be used for a variety of projects, including a new bottling hall to help launch the distillery’s inaugural whisky – the first-ever whisky made in the Cotswolds – as well as a larger visitor centre.
This October will see the launch of the distillery’s flagship product, Cotswolds Single Malt Whisky, which has been three years in the making.
Favourable reviews by renowned whisky writer Jim Murray in the 2016 and 2017 editions of his Whisky Bible has raised the profile of the product ahead of its debut, with the inaugural release (limited to 4,000 bottles) already sold out online.
The distillery has also become a top-rated visitor attraction, ranked #2 destination in the Cotswolds on TripAdvisor, with almost 20,000 visitors a year attending daily tours and tastings.
A spokeswoman for Cotswold Distillery said the popularity of its visitor centre and new whisky has exceeded expectation.
Founder and CEO Daniel Szor said: “We are overjoyed by this great vote of confidence in the company.
“Our ambitious plans for the future can now be realised thanks to the fantastic investor demand we’ve seen in this recent round. Premium spirits is an exciting and fast-growing sector, and we believe the opportunities for such a progressive brand, like The Cotswolds Distillery, are limitless.”
On track to turn over in excess of £2m in 2017, the distillery sells more than 100,000 bottles of its Cotswolds Dry Gin in 16 countries worldwide.
In early 2016, the company closed a £1m Angels’ Share crowdfunding campaign on the CrowdBnk platform.
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