Cotswolds Distillery raises £500k for expansion

The Cotswolds Distillery has reached its full £500,000 crowd-funding target just one week after launching on CrowdBnk, a record amount for the platform.

Cotswolds Distillery is raising investment on CrowdBnk to fund expansion

At the time of writing, the company had raised £538,000 of a £500,000 target, still with 52 days to go in the round.

Ahead of an ‘eventual public listing’, Cotswolds Distillery is seeking funding for further growth, revealing plans to double whisky production, expand its visitors’ centre and open a storefront in a nearby town.

Established in 2014, the distillery produces a London dry gin, brandies, liqueurs and single malt English whisky, which is made using local barely and is scheduled for release in October 2017. Around 175,000 bottles of the whisky are produced per annum.

The CrowdBnk round, scheduled to continue until 4 February 2016, is now overfunding and will remain open as the distiller endeavours to sell up to £1,000,000 in equity.

“We are overjoyed by this great vote of confidence in our company, its progress so far and our ambitious plans for the future, which are behind the fantastic investor demand we’ve seen over the past week,” said Daniel Szor, founder and CEO of the Cotswolds Distillery.

“Craft spirits are an exciting and fast-growing sector, and we believe the opportunities for an appealing brand backed by a well-structured company in an ideal location are limitless. We are happy to have been able to expand our investor base and add a legion of new brand ambassadors to our growing community.”

Former hedge fund manager Szor, along with his family and local investors, pledged £5m to open the Cotswolds Distillery in 2014.

Just weeks after first launching, the distillery received a grant from the Warwickshire Rural Growth Network (RGN) to expand production of its single malt whisky.

Meanwhile, its inaugural product, a dry gin, has been growing routes to market, launching in the US, Australia, and a number of other countries in the past year.