EarlyBird gets the worm on Crowdcube and beats £300,000 fundraising target with two days to spare
EarlyBird, the healthy snack delivery service, has beaten its £300,000 fundraising target two days ahead of schedule on crowd funding site Crowdcube.
The fund on Crowdcube, which is still running, has raised £311,200 so far bringing EarlyBird's total equity investment since starting out last autumn to £600,000, which includes an earlier fund on Crowdcube and a private round of investment, worth £170,000.
The fund has received investment from 188 people, and is offering just over 20 per cent of the company's shares. Founders Oliver Pugh and Jamie Trinder still control just over 50 per cent of the company.
EarlyBird has ambitions to challenge Graze, the snack subscription service, but at the moment this funding will “allow us to break even over next 12 months and improve gross margins, test new routes to markets, new products, new subscriptions,” Pugh told City PM, adding “we have plans to trial a set up with pubs to sell healthy bar snacks and introduce a gym box."
EarlyBird is valued at £1.5m, and currently makes a five per cent gross profit on each product sold, which the company forecasts will rise to 37 per cent in the next year as production increases.
Pugh said that crowdfunding made it possible for EarlyBird to launch:
I was far from well connected, not from a wealthy background, crowd funding allowed me to raise the initial feed money take the company from flat to factory. And it's allowed us to raise £300,000, when it would be too early to be seen by banks.