SpiceBox launches second crowdfund ahead of third London opening

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Vegan curry house concept SpiceBox has launched a new crowdfunding campaign ahead of plans to open a third London restaurant early next year.

The fundraise, hosted on online investment platform Seedrs, is aiming to crowdfund a target of £350,021 in return for 7.57% equity, giving a pre-money valuation of £4.3m.

Having only launched yesterday (22 November), the campaign has, at the time of writing, already raised £294,762 from 97 investors.

It is the second time SpiceBox, which currently operates restaurants in east London, has turned to crowdfunding. 

The business was founded by Grace Regan in late 2015 and originally operated as a Indian takeaway out of her own home. 

Street food residencies with Kerb followed, and in 2017 SpiceBox secured £450,000 funding from investment group 2enable Partners that eventually led to the launch of its first permanent restaurant, in Walthamstow, in early 2019.

Later in 2019, Regan launched her first crowdfund, via Seedrs, which hit its £275,000 target in just five hours, and eventually raised just shy of £340,000.

Much of that money was used to help get the group's second restaurant, in Leytonstone, open, which it eventually did last month. It was also used to develop a retail line of ready-prepared dhals and chutneys that recently launched into two wholesale distributors that both have nationwide reach.

This latest fundraise will go towards opening a third London restaurant, this time in south east London; and also support a further rollout of the group's retail range.

Speaking recently to BigHospitality, Regan said that despite the pandemic, her ambition to turn SpiceBox into the UK’s biggest Indian restaurant group remains undented.

“Five years down the line I’d like to be creeping towards the 10-site mark," she said.

"We’ve got to be ambitious and keep growing, but not at the sacrifice of what makes our business good. We have to maintain those things."

To read BigHospitality's full interview with Regan on her plans for SpiceBox, click here.

To find out more on SpiceBox's latest crowdfund, click here.