Honest Burgers has closed its crowdfunding campaign after raising close to £3m.
With an initial target of £1m, the fund has now reached £2.9m from 3,457 investors.
Last month the burger chain launched the crowdfund with ambitions to build its presence in regional cities and launch new premium QSR format Honest Smashed.
The brand’s private equity backers Active Partners led the round with an initial £1m, which raised £1.7m on the first day.
Honest CEO Frank Hayes told MCA that the new concept would look to compete with the likes of Five Guys and Shake Shack.
“We are confident, but of course the proof will be in the pudding,” Hayes said, adding “We’ve put a huge amount of thought into it. We have a lot of QSR firepower on the team. This will hopefully help us avoid some of the pitfalls and some of the things that people might miss.”
Hayes said that Honest Smashed, which is set to launch in a central London location, has been created to be as “simple as possible”, and geared for “maximum output capacity”, which he sees as key to QSR success.
Honest Burgers has ambitions to grow well beyond its 44 sites, and will look to regional opportunities under an evolved property strategy.
Over the past year the better burger brand appointed Marcus Denison-Smith as chief marketing officer, Matt Brandon as chief financial officer, Maureen Sandbach as people director and Paul Hunt as head of technology.
