The pitch deck used to raise $1.7 million for a vegan-food brand co-founded by a Made in Chelsea star


Man standing in a seat next a woman seat with her arms folded

  • 29-year-old Mikey Pearce founded Clean Kitchen Club in 2020 as a vegan fast-food restaurant.
  • He later recruited “Made in Chelsea” star Verity Bowditch as cofounder and scaled across London.
  • This is the pitch deck they used to raise $1.7 million in funding in their seed round.

YouTuber Mikey Pearce and “Made in Chelsea” star Verity Bowditch raised $1.7 million in investments for their quick-service restaurant, Clean Kitchen Club. The pair told Insider they wanted to create a company that makes vegan food more than “just an alternative.”

Clean Kitchen Club is a plant-based fast-food restaurant with five sites across London that offer takeout or dine-in vegan food.

Pearce launched the business in the summer of 2020 from his family’s kitchen in Brighton, England.

Shortly after, he recruited his friend Bowditch for her expertise in sustainability and plant-based nutrition as a graduate from King’s College London with a biomedical science and nutrition degree.

The vegan quick-service restaurant brand currently makes more than 2,000 sales a day, and its cofounders plan to expand into the retail market with a line of frozen-plant protein, according to Pearce and Bowditch.

Prior to fundraising, the business was valued at £7.5 million. In October 2021, they raised £1.4 million, or $1.7 million, in their seed round.

Bowditch and Pearce walked Insider through the pitch deck they used to secure the funding.

 



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club




Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


Bowditch said it was important that the deck be vibrant and playful to avoid any element of the brand “preaching” a strict plant-based diet.

“Veganism sometimes gets a stigma, and we wanted to debunk those myths and have accessible plant-based food on every high street,” Pearce said.  He added the deck needed to show that “Clean Kitchen wasn’t just about a food company or a hospitality business, it was a lifestyle we wanted to implement.”



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


In the deck, the founders emphasized that more than 80% of their customers were not vegan, and that Clean Kitchen Club had a 70% return-customer rate.

“It’s so crucial that we had that data to show our repeat customers, as it shows that people enjoy the products, it’s not, ‘Oh, I’ll just try it once.’ They come back, and that’s vital,” Pearce said.

Bowditch and Pearce also wanted to include some individual testimonies to show firsthand the reactions of their customers. “It’s really important to get customer feedback in there, especially our 4.8-star Deliveroo rating,” Bowditch added.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


“As we go into retail, you’ve got to show that that product is tried and tested, and people keep coming back for more, then you’re scalable.”

Pearce said communicating that their concept and business model already had proven market success was integral to landing investment. Pearce added they would reinvest capital raised into organic growth areas such as the marketing strategy.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


Before the deck, the company had grown a social audience of more than 30,000 Instagram followers by promoting the brand on the founders’ respective platforms.

“I think any deck should show what you’ve done without any money using your skills, so for us, it’s PR and marketing, so we’re going to show that,” Bowditch said.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


The second half of the deck homes in on what the founders regard as the problems within the industry – vegan alternatives are more expensive, lack flavor, and the limited options always look less appealing – and how Clean Kitchen Club can provide solutions.

“We found that there are flaws in the current plant-based industry, plant-based grab-and-go and plant-based quick-service restaurants, but we feel that we can plug the gap and that’s the core: We’re offering a solution to a problem,” Pearce said.



Clean Kitchen Club




Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


Calling themselves “clean ambassadors,” the duo “live and breathe” their business and promote their product online via their own personal social-media channels.

“I personally think that in the most successful businesses the founders embody their brand… We wanted to get our personalities across, which I think shine through the deck,” Bowditch told Insider.

“People back people and it’s still an early-stage startup. So on this round, we had to be able to get people to believe in us and get involved in the journey and support our vision to work with us,” Pearce added.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


Another critical element of the deck was selecting images that captured the variety of food on offer and the cofounders’ experience building a business’s image on social media. 

Bowditch said it was important that the deck emphasized sustainability, adding that “sustainability is a second thought” for many of Clean Kitchen Club’s competitors.

“We’ve built this business trying to be as sustainable as possible from the get-go,” she added. 

“That’s in the ingredients we use, the packaging we use, even the ink is water-soluble, and our burger releases 83% fewer carbon emissions than the beef alternative,” Bowditch said.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


Bowditch and Pearce wanted to pinpoint where Clean Kitchen Club sat within the industry for other retail and fast-food meat-free alternatives.

“There are a few competitors out there that do one thing, but we wanted to show we’re plant-based for everyone, so there are smoothies and acai bowls, as well as hangover food. Investors will really buy into the different dining aspects and show that we’re scalable,” Bowditch said.

“We love all the brands we’ve spoken about, what they do, and they’re amazing, but it was vital to show this is how we can do it differently,” Pearce said.



Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club




Courtesy of Clean Kitchen Club


One slide focuses on the cofounders’ plan to open several new physical stores. Clean Kitchen Club plans to open five more London sites in four months.

“Our main business strategy is a quick-service rollout, so we want to do a widespread rollout, we want to act quickly. We want to open 40 sites,” Pearce said.

“We’re always analyzing the data and looking at where the best areas are for new sites. We look at the residential areas, we look at what areas are popular for veganism, and also, we look at our analytics from our Instagram, where our audience is already based,” he continued.

Bowditch added that it also showed that the business, which was just over a year old at that point, was “looking into the future and really serious about this brand and take it to the very end.”

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