£15m secured by UK’s largest virtual brand company
Peckwater Brands has secured £15m in its series A seed funding round, following support by Solihull-based Stonegate Group. This latest funding round, follows a £3m seed round in October 2021, brings the business’ post-money valuation to £65m.
Founded in 2019, Peckwater builds delivery-only food brands, driven by data-led customer insight, for restaurants up and down the country.
The orders are cooked and delivered from existing kitchens alongside their day-to-day operations. The business operates a mix of licensed brands spanning several categories and run shared brands with partners such as Unilever, Buzzfeed, and Heinz. Pub firm Stonegate has 4,500 sites nationwide and has taken a minority stake in Peckwater, for an undisclosed sum, having trialled Peckwater Brands in some of its pubs.
Stonegate is backed by TDR Capital, an investor in major household brands such as ASDA and David Lloyd.
Suzanne Baker the commercial director of Stonegate said: “Peckwater Brands’ partnership with some of our pubs has demonstrated the company’s exciting potential. As such, we were delighted to collaborate with them, participate in their latest funding round and offer support to this promising team”.
Peckwater’s series A funding will be used to develop its technology such as machine learning-generated menus and operations performance improvements. It also plans to accelerate its expansion, with its UK team planning to take the company from operating in 150 sites to being the largest kitchen network in the UK.
Its international operations will also be developed, in particular its US division, which was launched in Miami in early 2022.
As part of the investment, co-founder Sam Martin will now become Peckwater Brands’ CEO, with co-founder Leo Bradshaw, taking up the position of Executive Chair.
