London Union gets £2.5m from the crowd to build street food market

London Union, the parent company of “London’s nomadic street food circus” Street Feast, has closed a £2.5m round on early-stage equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

In total, 160 individuals participated in the round, committing between £5,000 and £200,000 for an estimated 11.86% stake in the business. London Union is currently in the process of raising an additional £1m from private investors.

Founded by Leon’s Henry Dimbleby and Street Feast’s Jonathan Downey, London Union aims to underused and derelict areas of London into bustling street food markets. In June 2015, the start-up raised £1m from a number of high profile founder investors including Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Yotam Ottolenghi.

The business claims its three Street Feast markets in Dalston, Lewisham and Shoreditch generated £3.5m in revenue and 300,000 visitors during their five months of life – and is expecting to see a further 1.5 million visitors to its markets throughout 2016.

The finance will be used to fuel the development of a flagship street food market in central London, alongside 12 local markets across the city.

Dimbleby commented: “What’s great is that the success of our fundraise means we are well on the way to transforming London’s food landscape. We’ve already set a date for our first investors dinner and for the ‘Annual General Eating’ in July, where we’ll eat, drink, listen and vote together on important company decisions.”

Downey added: “The support we’ve received has been phenomenal. At the outset we wanted a relatively small number of highly engaged investors to take a real interest in our business and we have achieved that in just 30 days.”