Great British Chefs has secured £1.5 million in funding from Bestport Ventures LLP, reinvestment from current shareholders and a number of high net worth individuals. The Board and Management team, led by CEO Ollie Lloyd, have also invested in the business as part of this fundraising.
Ollie Lloyd commented, “This funding round will enable us to accelerate the expansion of the business, helping us develop more sticky content and editorial for our rapidly growing audience of food lovers. We have ambitious plans for brand extensions as well as entering new markets including Great Italian Chefs later in the year.”
Great British Chefs (“GBC’) is a premium digital publishing business targeting high-end consumers with an aspirational food offering. This includes over 2,000 recipes from Britain’s leading chefs, all with beautiful images; articles from contributors including the UK’s top food bloggers; and a host of Chef profile, recipe and technique video content.
Fastest growing food website
The fastest growing food website in the UK according to Experian, GBC received over 2 million page views and 1 million site visits a month and has also acquired a following of over 1 million users across its various social platforms. In addition, GBC has published 6 iPad / iPhone apps and Apple singled out their recently relaunched App platform as one of the best 5 food apps globally at the launch of iPad Air 2.
115 top chefs
GBC collaborates with over 115 top chefs located all around Britain, each with their own style of cooking from brilliant pub food, through to highly complex modern gastronomy. Chefs include Marcus Wareing, Simon Rogan, Nathan Outlaw, Frances Atkins and Nuno Mendes, all of whom feature on the website, various apps and social platforms.
Great British Chefs creates integrated branded content campaigns for a diverse range of partners, who are attracted to their rapidly growing traffic and affluent audience. Over the last 12 months campaigns have included Qantas, American Express, Welsh Lamb, Alaska Seafood, Diageo, Unilever, Tesco, Celebrity Cruises, Barbour and Cath Kidston.
Great British Chefs was founded in 2010 by Ollie Lloyd, Vimal & Gill Khosla (the co-founders of Travel Select, sold to Lastminute.com in 2002), David Parfitt (Chair of Bafta 2008-10), Shehani Fernando and Alastair Creamer. The site has grown rapidly since launch and now gets over 2.2 million page impressions a month, 1 million monthly visits and has a social following of over 1 million.
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