Niche coffee house chain Taylor St Baristas secures £1.8m Crowdcube mini-bond

London-based speciality coffee house chain Taylor St Baristas has raised £1.86m from the crowd using Crowdcube’s mini-bond funding solution; overfunding its initial target by over £360,000.

504 investors – combining Taylor St’s own customers and Crowdcube’s members – backed the round and can now choose to receive 8% fixed rate interest per year for the four year term of the bond, or can have their dividend paid in coffee with store credit at a rate of 12% per annum.

Established in 2006, Taylor St has nine coffee shops dotted about the UK in locations such as Mayfair, Canary Wharf and Brighton. More recently, in 2012, the company established a joint venture with Tesco to create its supermarket coffee chain Harris + Hoole.

It now intends to use the major funding to double in size by 2017 with plans to expand its barista training programme and extend the sales of its branded coffee and merchandise both in-store and online.

Taylor St CEO, Richard Shaer, said he was “delighted” by the outcome of the mini-bond:

“Crowdcube gave us the opportunity to offer our customers and supporters a safe, efficient and robust platform through which they could invest in Taylor St, reducing our administrative burden and allowing us to reach a wider base of investors.”

Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, added: “Established businesses that have large, regular customer followings are realising that our retail bonds offer an ideal option for raising growth capital. We are getting enquiries from all sectors, including some familiar household names, so the public will have plenty of exciting opportunities to get involved in the coming year.”