Healthy eating start-up Mindful Chef boxes up £1m from Pendleton and Murray

A UK start-up offering a range of healthy eating recipe boxes has secured £1, 073,643 in an oversubscribed round on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

Mindful Chef, which was launched in 2015 by “health enthusiasts” Robert Grieg-Gran, Giles Humphries and Myles Hopper, attracted over 200 investors including sporting legends Andy Murray, Victoria Pendleton, and Will Greenwood within just one week of its campaign going live.

The business had originally sought to raise £400,000 but its oversubscribed funding round, raised in exchange for a share of 11.76% equity, means that it’s now valued at over £3m.

Based in London, Mindful Chef delivers gluten-free, organic produce to homes across the country. Customers – said to include the Beckham family – choose the recipes and the boxes are then delivered for the customer to cook.

While the business is competing with the likes of Hello Fresh and Gousto, Mindful Chef says its USP is that its boxes “are packed with lean and sustainably sourced ingredients” enabling customers to “create fast, fresh and nutritious meals”.

It will use the crowdfunding investment to expand its service “to benefit the entire country” with plans to increase marketing and build a mobile app.

Co-founder Humphries – ex-M&C Saatchi – commented:“We are delighted to have over-funded in such a short period of time.

“The demand has been phenomenal; this is huge validation of the business and has left the whole team energised about what the future holds. We are looking forward to bringing healthy eating to thousands more households across the UK.”