Vegan supermarket and subscription service TheVeganKind has secured an investment of £3.5 million in a Series A funding round.
TheVeganKind, the UK’s biggest vegan supermarket, has secured £3.5 million a Series A funding round with support from PwC.
The £3.5 million investment was led by Literacy Capital Plc. The online supermarket and subscription service hopes to add additional detail and consumer experience to the business in the short term to help the existing team take the business forward.
TheVeganKind was supported by PwC throughout the process, “from the preparation of key investor materials, investor relations and term sheet negotiations”. The team advising on the deal was Glen Waters, Rich Abrahams, Ed Reid and Jason Cohen from the PwC Raise | Ventures team, which supports fast-growing early-stage companies.
Waters, the head of PwC Raise | Ventures, said: “TheVeganKind’s growth story is exceptional given they were bootstrapped up until March 2020 and as a team have continued to demonstrate how capable they are, as they look to take the business to that next level. We look forward to watching them scale and view Literacy Capital as a fantastic and experienced growth partner to help them achieve their ambitions.”
Literacy Capital is a closed-end investment company supporting small, growing British businesses and helping them achieve long-term success. It is the only investment fund of the kind with a charitable objective, with an annual donation equating to 0.9% of its net assets to advance child education and literacy. By the end of 2020, it had donated over £1.9 million.
Richard Pindar, Literacy Capital’s CIO, said: “The tailwinds in the sector, as well as the health, welfare and environmental benefits that TVK is providing, are really encouraging. The aims and objectives of the founders resonate really well with our own charitable and business objectives. We look forward to assisting the team and helping them to expand TheVeganKind even further.”
TheVeganKind has been growing rapidly. It moved to a new 35,000 sq ft warehouse last October, set up a membership programme called TVK+ in January. and launched its own range of plant-based ready meals, Love Plants. Speaking to The Vegan Review in February, TheVeganKind CEO Scott McCulloch said of the impending investment: “We’ve been almost entirely bootstrapped as a business for seven years, and this raise will give us opportunities we’ve just never had before.”
Read our full interview with TheVeganKind CEO Scott McCulloch.
Speaking after the investment, McCulloch said the investment allows the business to “ramp up considerably, investing in our people, inventory, infrastructure, marketing and more”. He added: “We have lots of exciting developments in the works, such as TVK Health, and hundreds of new brands and products waiting to be listed. We have much to do, and we cannot wait to get to work.”
