Hop Stuff Brewery, which launched in 2013 following a successful Crowdcube campaign, is returning to the fundraising platform to raise £500,000 to open two bars next year.
Founded by former Lloyds banker James Yeomans, Hop Stuff currently runs The Taproom in Woolwich, and wants to open two more sites in London and the South East.
Projected to hit £1,000,000 in revenue by April 2017, up from £60,000 three years ago, Yeomans hopes to double this with the investment round, which offers 8.2% equity.
Yeomans said: “We have ambitious plans to expand the brewery, allowing us to produce up to 1,000 kegs a week. We are in advanced talks with a distributor in Sweden, and are seeing increasing international demand for our beer. With demand for craft beer growing globally, we’ll be well positioned grow into new markets, as well as maintaining existing relationships with sites and distributors across London and the UK.
“We’re working with relationship banks to asset finance the new brewhouse, so we can use the cash for working capital, marketing, resourcing and fit out. We’ll also be looking to aggressively acquire sites for new Taproom’s across London and the South East.
“We have a demonstrable track record of beating our own forecasts. In 2013 we forecast Hop Stuff would be turning over around £480,000 by this year, we’re currently on track to double that (based on 4 months of sales). Profitability is set to rise with the growth of our own outlets and cost saving efficiency of the new Brewhouse
“With regard to an exit, it would be easy to reach for examples like Camden - although we back our brand, we’re a little more realistic. In year 3 we’ve allowed for a dividend, this could fund a buy back instead. The other option is a market float; we’ve included Chapel Down as a comparable for this reason in our valuation tracker in the business plan.”
