Brighton ethical chicken brand Hen launches crowdfunding push: Hen, the ethical chicken brand founded in Brighton by Philip Ilic, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, looking to raise £100,000 in return for 11.76% of its equity. The pitch states: “We now wish to build on the success of our Brighton restaurant and expand our operations to reach a wider audience. We have signed heads of terms with an angel investor, and in conjunction with this, as well as the money raised on Crowdcube, we plan to open one further restaurant in a high profile, high footfall location in London (Soho, Shoreditch, Islington, Brixton, Central London generally, South Kensington and Notting Hill, among other locations). We plan to utilize the strategy Honest Burger used in its early days, which was to open many smaller units but in good locations while optimizing each shop to become very profitable. In four short years, Honest had grown to nine restaurants and in January 2015; it sold a 50% stake for £7m to Active Private Equity, valuing the brand at £14m. This is the strategy and the success we hope to emulate over the next four years. Our intention is to open one profitable restaurant in 2016, one in 2017, one in 2018 and two in 2019, bringing the grand total to six restaurants (including Hen Brighton) by the end of 2019. At this point our plan is to have created six profitable Hen Restaurants (Ebitda of 15 – 20%) as a well-recognized brand. At this juncture our research suggests Hen will be very attractive to a private equity deal and a potential exit for early investors. If we achieve this goal we believe we could seek a valuation of a minimum of £5 million and as much as £9 million within five years. This would make any investment made today via Crowdcube worth 6- 12 times that in five years’ time. At this point we would seek to make a private equity deal. Furthermore, in partnership with Seeds Consulting (experts in food and beverage franchising) we plan to set up a full franchise operation with the intention of franchising Hen out to the UK regions, as well as key international locations, such as airports. The innate scalability of this model means there is the potential to rollout the franchise concept and by 2019 have 15 franchises on our books, thus establishing Hen as one of the market leaders in the premiumised or ‘honest’ chicken market.” Matteo Frigeri is a Hen co-founder and director Business Director. He is also co-founder of Seeds Consulting, with over 12-years experience in franchising within the food retail industry. Currently driving the development of brands like Crepeaffaire, Wrapchic, Wok&Go, Wafflemeister and Francesca in the UK and internationally.