From 400 cocktails a day to 10,000: how Edmunds Cocktails funded their next stage of growth

Edmunds Cocktails began in a kitchen with a simple idea: help pubs, bars and restaurants serve genuinely great cocktails quickly and consistently.

The product found its market fast. By 2022, the bootstrapped business had reached around £1.2 million in annual revenue. But the faster they grew, the more cash they needed to fulfil demand and invest in what came next.

They turned to SeedLegals for a clear path through their first raise. Tom and the team knew the funding would help them increase production, hold more stock and invest in their next stage of growth. What they didn’t know was how to structure the investment, secure EIS Advance Assurance or get the right documents in place. SeedLegals guided them through each decision, made the process manageable and kept the raise moving.

A profitable business without the capital to grow

Just four months after Edmunds Cocktails launched, lockdown closed the pubs and bars. But demand didn’t disappear. People stuck at home were looking for something more exciting than another bottle of beer or wine, opening up an online market Edmunds hadn’t originally planned for. Meanwhile, hospitality businesses were being forced to rethink how they operated. That created even more demand for faster, more efficient cocktail service when venues reopened.

Edmunds were ready at exactly the right moment. Recommendations spread through the hospitality community and online orders took off. But the speed of that growth caught the young, bootstrapped business off guard.

By 2022, Edmunds were already profitable, but didn’t have enough free capital to scale their operations. The team needed to buy ingredients and packaging, build up stock and increase production before the resulting orders put money back into the business.

Standing still would have meant turning down opportunities the team had worked hard to create. After speaking with their accountants, they decided on a two-stage plan: bring in working capital quickly to relieve the immediate pressure, then prepare for a larger raise that could fund equipment, marketing and a more ambitious phase of growth.

A clear route through a first raise

Raising equity funding was new territory for Tom and he wasn’t sure where to start. He asked other drinks brands, founders and people in his network how they had approached it. The same name kept coming back.

SeedLegals helped Edmunds put their two-stage plan into practice. The team talked Tom through SeedFASTs and explained how Edmunds could take in the first investment from close contacts ahead of the larger round using SeedFASTs. That meant the business could respond to the immediate pressure on stock and production without putting its longer-term funding plans on hold.

With early capital secured, Edmunds could work towards the larger growth round with external angel investors. That involved a fuller set of deal terms, funding documents and more detailed negotiations. SeedLegals helped Tom understand how the two routes fitted together, so the capital available immediately didn’t have to wait for the wider round.

A funding process investors already recognised and trusted

As Edmunds widened their investor base, they began speaking to experienced angels who had invested in similar businesses before. Many were already familiar with SeedLegals and knew what to expect when the funding documents arrived.

EIS was another important part of the raise. Most of their angel investors expected EIS to be available. SeedLegals helped the company apply for EIS Advance Assurance, so Tom could approach those conversations with greater confidence.

Around 70% of Edmunds’ investors ultimately used EIS. For Tom, SeedLegals was a name he could trust, recommended by other founders and backed by clear, practical support throughout the raise. His investors trusted it too. With EIS Advance Assurance taken care of and familiar SeedLegals documents landing in their inboxes, there was less for Tom to explain and fewer reasons for investors to hesitate.

What the funding made possible

Once the first investment came in, the difference was immediate. Edmunds began buying ingredients and packaging in larger quantities, which brought down costs and made production more efficient. Output increased from around 400 cocktails a day to 1,500 in the immediate term (today, that figure stands at 10,000 cocktails a day), while holding more finished stock meant the team could fulfil orders faster.

The larger raise, completed around 12 months later, changed what Edmunds could invest in next. The business moved from an 800-square-foot unit into a 3,000-square-foot space and bought better filling and labelling equipment.

The team hired a salesperson, attended trade shows in London and Birmingham and put the brand in front of larger prospective customers. They also rebuilt the ecommerce website and brought in a marketing agency to grow direct-to-consumer sales.

The results went well beyond the production floor. When the new website was created, Edmunds were generating around £200,000 a year online. Two years later, Tom expects that figure to reach approximately £1 million.

The funding turned plans that Edmunds would otherwise have had to tackle slowly, one by one, into changes the team could make when the opportunity was there. Within two years, they had more than tripled daily production, moved into a space nearly four times the size and are on course to grow online revenue fivefold.

Any advice for fundraising founders?

Tom’s biggest lesson was not to assume that a strong business or a detailed pitch deck will speak for itself. Investors need to understand where the business could go, how their money will help it get there and what return that growth could create.

What could the right raise unlock for you?

A lot of founders end up where Tom did: the business is working, orders are coming in, but there’s still not enough cash to get to where you want to be. Being profitable doesn’t automatically mean you can grow.

SeedLegals exists for that moment. We’ll help you work out which capital to bring in first, get your EIS and funding documents ready before investors ask and make sure the terms in their inbox are ones they already recognise, so there’s less for you to explain and fewer reasons for them to hesitate.

If that sounds familiar, book a free strategy call with our fundraising team.