London-based Oppo Ice Cream has completed its third equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs and captured more than £465,000 in funding. The company has created ice cream with fewer calories than an apple. It contains 60% fewer calories than regular ice cream due to ingredients such as coconut oil, stevia leaf, and fresh milk. All three of the Oppo’s flavors (Madagascan Vanilla, Mint Choc Swirl, Sated Caramel) each has a superfood boost. The ice cream is now sold in approximately 1100 locations, which includes Waitrose, Whole Foods Market, Budgens, Holland & Barrett, and Cocado. The company revealed:
“We believe food doesn’t need loads of sugar or calories to taste great, and we have demonstrated this by winning a Great Taste Award. We use science to achieve the impossible – true healthy indulgence. We believe Oppo is Europe’s first, to our knowledge, dairy ice cream which can legally be called ‘healthy.'”
The company became the “most overfunded” offer ever in 2015 through its first initiative on Seedrs by setting out to raise £100,000 and securing more than 3x that goal and then returned once again to Seedrs to do a follow-on round last year; Oppo smashed through its £150,000 target in about 6 hours. Founders Charlie and Harry Thuillier, revealed why they decided to use the crowdfunding method during an interview with Crowdfund Insider:
“Our experience with crowdfunding has been overwhelmingly positive. The biggest surprise was realizing just how public crowdfunding is. If you’re looking for investment behind closed doors and don’t get anywhere, then that failure remains behind closed doors. No-one need know. With crowdfunding, however, that failure is completely public. That’s a scary prospect for any company. However, we have always seen this as an opportunity. A publicly successful raise can gain you some great PR, as well providing a public validation for your company as a viable business proposition. You just have to make sure the raise is successful, and if possible, noteworthy too. In our first raise, we became the fastest ever food and drink company to reach target through crowdfunding (we still hold this record to date), and in our second raise, in addition to another fast raise, we managed to secure Wimbledon Champion and World Number 2, Andy Murray as an investor. As a small business you have to take your opportunities. Crowdfunding is one of the best.”
Funds from the latest campaign will be used to continue Oppo Ice Cream’s growth and development.
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