Burleighs Gin has smashed its crowdfunding target, raising just shy of £500k as it looks to upscale operations and break into the US market.
The craft gin distiller this week closed a successful campaign on Crowdcube, which saw it pocket £499k in exchange for a 10.8% stake – valuing the business at £4.1m.
It was originally looking to raise a minimum of £250k and potentially lead another raise in the new year.
“We always knew we wanted more than £250k to move forward with all the plans we have,” said commercial director Sam Watson.
“So, we kept the fundraise open and allowed the funds to come in because that will speed up the whole process of growth for us.”
More than 290 investors joined the campaign, with a UK collaboration partner of the business pledging £250k.
The five-year-old brand will use the investment to upsize its distillery, moving into bigger premises. This would allow it to double the amount of gin currently produced, it said.
It takes the business about two days to produce 600 bottles of gin, said Watson.
After the move, targeted for April 2020, Burleighs will be able to produce over 1,000 bottles within a day-and-a-half.
The addition of a more automatic bottling machine would further speed up the process, Watson added.
The brand is also currently looking to break into the US market, having entered discussions with a local partner to back the Stateside launch.
To this aim, in July it unveiled its Marilyn Monroe Pink Gin, hoping that the pin-up’s popularity and the bright pink bottles would help it break into the US market, where the brand is currently unknown.
“It is very different to anything we have done before as we have always been a traditional London dry gin,” said Watson.
“But pink gin is very on trend at the moment and Marilyn Monroe is globally recognised as a huge icon so we felt it would give us a different avenue to grow the business.
“It was important for us to hit the pink gin trend and do something that was a little bit different.”
The investment will also fund the expansion of Burleighs’ eight-strong team with the addition of four new sales members to “strengthen its position” across the whole of the UK.
“At the moment as a brand we are fairly strong in Leicester and the Midlands where we are based, but as you go north and south, we become less well known. We are looking to change that with dedicated salespeople in those regions,” Watson added.
So far, Burleighs has secured listings with Waitrose, Ocado, Majestic, Harvey Nichols and selected Co-op stores in the Midlands.
Sales rose 70% to £1.2m in the year to January 2019 with around 73,000 bottles sold.
The company is now “confident” about breaking the 100,000 bottles mark this year, Watson added.
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