Co-founder Julian Hearn said: “Huel has been profitable since day one and is on track to triple turnover this year. In order to accelerate growth, expand our product portfolio and reach new markets, we decided to take external funding into the company.”
The start-up powdered food firm received funding from venture capital firm Highland Europe, with partner Stan Laurent joining Huel’s board of directors.
Commenting on the investment, Laurent said: “We knew that Julian and his team had created a special brand before even meeting them: people around us were raving about Huel.
‘Scale the business across the globe’
“It’s a textbook example of the next generation of e-commerce businesses. We’re looking forward to helping Julian and his team scale the business across the globe.”
Hearn said that Highland Europe had given Huel the means and a wealth of experience to scale Huel into a ‘global leader’.
“These developments present a really exciting time for Huel and the ‘complete food’ category in general. We expect further innovation will follow as a consequence soon,” he added.
Founded in 2014 by Julian Hearn and nutritionist James Collier, Huel’s range of powdered foods is produced in Devon and shipped around the world.
Sold more than 25m meals
In July, the producer added a new berry-flavoured variant to its line-up, following the launch of a mint chocolate product in March. Huel said it has sold more than 25m meals across 80 countries and has a team of 65 based in the UK, US and Germany.
Meanwhile, two beetroot ketchup entrepreneurs are aiming to make export sales 80% of their business by 2020, after receiving £700,000 from a private backer.
Having secured a listing in Whole Foods Market in the US, Foraging Fox co-founders Frankie Fox and Desiree Parke said the new investment would give the business the opportunity to expand its reach to another 5,000 natural food stores.
