Plant-based Meat Company THIS Raised Over £3.6m In The Fastest Ever Campaign On Seedrs

UK plant-based meat company THIS, has raised over £3.6m, following the launch of a Seedrs campaign.

Since going live yesterday, 10th August, THIS had surpassed its £2 million target, which was secured before the campaign was fully launched to the public. 

THIS's Seedrs campaign is the fastest FMCG business to hit target ever and fastest ever campaign to hit £1.5m+.

This investment round includes venture capital firms such as Backed, Five Seasons Ventures, Idinvest Partners, Seedcamp, vegan investment fund Veg Capital and Manta Ray Ventures, alongside professional footballer Chris Smalling.

Andre de Haes, Founder of Backed VC, stated: "THIS is capitalising on the most important trend in nutrition: strong demand for tasty plant-based meat alternatives, for all those who are increasingly conscious about the detrimental health, climate change and animal welfare impacts of mass meat production. This macro trend alone doesn't explain THIS's success; it is unprecedented to see a startup food product achieve widespread supermarket distribution right after launching. The team at THIS blend executional hyper-efficiency with both ground-breaking R&D and innovative marketing. THIS's achievement as the fastest campaign in Seedrs history for a round above £1.5m is well deserved."

Chris Smalling, Professional footballer & Co-Founder of ForGood added: "I've been really impressed with what Andy & Pete have achieved in such a short time. They've created a killer brand with amazing products. Thrilled to be part of their journey".

THIS aims to accelerate growth and use the investment to expand a London-based innovation centre, buy specialised equipment and hire a team of world-leading food-scientists. It is also planning to launch 10 products per year across several categories, boost manufacturing capability and marketing.

THIS was founded by Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman, who exited beef burger chain Chosen Bun to create the most realistic chicken and bacon meat-alternatives in the world using peas and soya beans instead of killing animals. Following two years of research and development, partnering with world-leading texture and flavour scientists, THIS's products mimic meat in taste, texture, appearance and smell, but without the ethical or environmental impact.

Commenting on the crowdfunding campaign Andy Shovel, Co-Founder of THIS said: "Pete and I can scarcely believe how quickly the Seedrs campaign has been building momentum. I haven't clicked 'refresh' this often since my online dating days. We're truly honoured that so many people have deemed THIS to be worthy of their investment; we'll keep over-working and ageing abnormally fast, in the hope that we make them a massive return."

So far, THIS has sold 5 million portions of their game-changing plant-based meat, saving 1,734,879kg of CO2 an equivalent of 22.3 return trips to the moon. THIS is raising investment on Seedrs here.