North East superfood powders firm Super U has raised more than £1m through a crowdfund campaign - having walked away from a potential Dragons’ Den investment.
Sean Ali and Charlotte Bailey entered BBC One's Dragons’ Den last summer but their show was only aired on TV recently, showing how they secured offers matching their request from all five millionaire entrepreneurs on the panel.
On the show they struck a deal with Tej Lalvani and Peter Jones for a £50,000 investment in return for 6% equity.
However, since the show was filmed last year the TV investors and Super U founders mutually walked away from the deal - leading to a bid to raise 10 times the Dragons’ funds to fuel ambitious plans to break the US market.
The firm turned to Seedrs crowdfunding platform, having raised £160,000 against an initial target of £100,000 back in September 2019.
Now the pair are set to head to launch the products that all five TV Dragons loved in the US in the autumn, focussing on getting a slice of the biggest market in the world for superfood powders.
Their blends, including Shroom Coffee and Berry Beauty – which are designed to help support immunity, digestion, skin health, energy and focus, and can be added into smoothies, shakes, salads, yoghurts and drinks – have been flying out of their Gateshead warehouse.
As well as launching into the US the pair will use investment to grow Super U’s direct to customer channel and build on its subscription model, which already generates a healthy monthly sum from hundreds of active subscribers.
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The company also intends to expand its retail presence and secure some larger key accounts.
Super U has successfully smashed its target of £550,000 through a second Seedrs fundraise, with the total currently sitting at £1,016,022, raised from 475 investors.
How much of that sum they take, however, is up to them.
Mr Ali and Ms Bailey had originally planned to make the fundraise public this week, as they had been sure they would need to open up the campaign to hit their target.
But within a very short time over the weekend it became clear that they would more than meet their goal through the private investment.
Seedrs’ rules dictate that firms can only ask to close campaigns once they have reached their target, and should run for a minimum of one week, as many firms need at least this amount of time to reach their target and can actually have up to 60 days.
This means that Super U’s campaign will continue up until midnight on Thursday, but money that is put in now won’t be taken by the company.
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The pair also said they are unlikely to take the full £1m to invest, and will probably take around £800,000, as taking more would mean giving away too much equity.
However, they said they may well turn to crowdfunding further down the line with the business, to give those who missed out this time a chance to become part of the firm in the future.
Ms Bailey said: “Basically we didn’t expect it to go this well - it has been amazing and we couldn’t be happier with the amount of people who have wanted to invest. It shows how good our business is.
“It’s a shame we aren’t going public but we’re not prepared to give away any more equity, plus we don’t want to take more money from the campaign than we need at the moment.”
Mr Ali added: “Who knows though? We might need to do another fundraise further down the line.
"For now we’re just excited to get building the team and to get to work on our plan - it’s exciting times.”