Blue Horizon Ventures, a venture capitalist renowned for investing in ‘game-changing’ plant-based food brands as well as cultivated meat has announced a multi-million-pound investment into innovative vegan confectionery firm, LoveRaw.
Blue Horizon Ventures, already financial backers for Beyond Meat, a US based producer of plant-based meat substitutes and many others, has signed an investment deal with LoveRaw.
This comes just two years after Rimi Thapar, Founder and Managing Director of LoveRaw, rejected a £50,000 investment offered by Dragon’s Den star and serial investor, Deborah Meaden, in determination to maintain a higher equity stake in the business.
Since declining this deal, Rimi and her business partner and husband, Manav Thapar, have worked hard to hone the brand’s 100% natural, vegan chocolate buttercup product, now manufactured in five flavours and sold in major supermarkets and other retail chains across 10 different countries worldwide.
Having successfully achieved a 98% year-on-year growth rate, combined with a 200% increase in monthly sales, the entrepreneurial duo approached Blue Horizon Ventures for investment in early 2019, inspired by the venture capitalist’s vision to create the largest ecosystem for tastier, healthier and sustainable food across the globe.
In signing the 7-figure investment deal, Blue Horizon Ventures will now support Rimi and Manav in successfully disrupting the vegan confectionery industry, a strategy supported by newly appointed Non-Executive-Director, Juliet Barratt, Co-Founder and previous Chief Marketing Officer of Grenade® - a healthy snacking FMCG brand offering high protein and low sugar nutrition bars.
Michael Kleindl, Founder and Managing Partner of Blue Horizon Ventures confirmed:
“We are extremely pleased to welcome LoveRaw to the Blue Horizon portfolio. Together we will work to provide consumers around the world with plant-based and “clean label” products from the indulgence category and aim to convert the current product options towards more sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. We are confident that LoveRaw has the opportunity to become market leaders in their sector.”
Boasting extensive experience in building Grenade from a start-up to a key player within the healthy snacking and FMCG sectors, Juliet will work alongside Blue Horizon Ventures to help LoveRaw quickly dominate the vegan confectionery industry by developing key business areas of branding, supply chain, manufacturing, recruitment and marketing.
Juliet Barratt confirmed:
“The team at LoveRaw are completely committed to making and selling really tasty vegan confectionery. Founders Rimi and Manav are great – they have an amazing work ethic, are driven and smart but most of all, extremely humble. I am very proud to be involved with LoveRaw and to be able to work with them to grow their brand further.”
Rimi Thapar added:
“Having Blue Horizon on board is game-changing. Regardless of the investment, our values align with theirs: We are all on a mission to make plant-based eating the norm and to also turn LoveRaw into an international brand. We are so glad that we waited for the right investor and didn’t buckle when the Dragon’s Den offer came in when we so needed it! After being introduced to Juliet through a mutual contact, we knew that she possessed invaluable knowledge that she could share. We couldn’t be happier to be working with another entrepreneur within the industry.”
Founded in 2013, LoveRaw is headquartered in Altrincham, Greater Manchester and currently employs a team of nine staff members, forecast to double by close of 2020.
For more details, visit:
www.eatloveraw.com
https://www.bluehorizonventures.com