Neat Burger, the Lewis Hamilton-backed vegan restaurant group, has completed a funding round led by SoftBank’s Rajeev Misra valuing the company at $70m and allowing it to push ahead with plans to triple in size, the Financial Times reports.
The plant-based fast-food chain, started in 2019, intends to grow from five London restaurants to 19 dine-in sites and 16 delivery kitchens by the end of 2022 as well as launch its pea protein burgers in several major UK supermarkets.
Ryan Bishti, a nightclub operator who co-founded the business with his brother Zack and Tommaso Chiabra, an early investor in Beyond Meat, said that Neat Burger’s “rule of thumb” was opening one new restaurant each month.
With sites becoming available at cheaper rents, the pandemic “accelerated our expansion plan”, he added. The company also aims to open in Italy, the US and the Middle East.
Neat Burger has not disclosed its annual revenues but said that it expected to increase sales 300 per cent year-on-year as it opened new sites. Sales would be “double digits of millions” in 2022, Chiabra said.
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