Swedish plant-based fish startup Hooked is set to close a seven-figure funding round to expand outside its domestic market, with plans in place to launch in the UK next year.
Founded by Tom Johansson, Emil Wasteson and Peter Liu in 2019 with a mission to reduce overfishing, the brand makes a range of vegan fish alternatives from vegetable protein, including fish-ish sticks, tuna substitute ‘toonish’ and salmon substitute ‘salmoonish’.
It previously raised €5m in venture capital funding and is now opening its doors to the crowd, targeting backers to join its ‘Ocean Fighter’ community.
Hooked has beaten a €560k (£481k) target on the UK Crowdcube platform, raising more than €621k so far in a round that closes this week.
The business is raising on a €11.7m (£10.1m) valuation, with the majority of the total coming from its VC backers and the rest from 120 crowd investors.
It also raised €600k in January to take the total for the round to more than €1.2m.
Hooked plans to use the money to develop a new range of products, expand across the entire Nordics region and continue building its community.
“With this fundraise we will be able to expand our products outside of Sweden and enter Germany to start making serious impact and sales in Europe,” Johansson told The Grocer.
“After Germany our big target market is the UK, which we see a lot of potential in to enter with better and more affordable products with our Scandinavian brand.”
In 2022, the company increased revenues three-fold to €450k, with an EBITDA loss of €2m. It also launched two new products and expanded into Finland and Iceland.
Hooked claims to have saved the lives of almost 400,000 fish in 2022.
No comments yet