Mon 21st Mar 2016 - London Cocktail Club abandons £750,000 crowdfunding campaign after outside investment interest London Cocktail Club abandons £750,000 crowdfunding campaign after outside investment interest: The London Cocktail Club has abandoned its £750,000 fund-raise on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube after receiving interest from outside investors. The company, founded in 2008 by JJ Goodman and James Hopkins and includes “dragon” Sarah Willingham from the BBC television series and Raymond Blanc on its board of directors, was raising the money as part of plans to treble the size of its five-strong estate in the next three years. However, having launched the campaign, which was offering a 7.50% equity stake in return for the investment, at the start of the month, it has now pulled the offer. In an email to investors, it said: “We are going to be pulling out of the campaign early. This is because we’ve received a number of exciting offers of finance outside of the site which are too attractive to ignore (keep your eyes peeled for some exciting new openings coming this year :) !!” The company was planning to use the money to finance the roll-out of three further bars before the end of the year. After that it would use operating cash flow and debt to build the chain to 19 bars by 2019. In its pitch the company stated: “Unlike big chains, our bars are siblings rather than clones. These sites are already delivering operating Ebitda of over £600,000. Our most mature bar has produced an Ebitda of £130,000 in the first six months of this financial year, which demonstrates the potential scale of this business. We plan to acquire new premises in areas of London where millennials tend to work and where dead spaces and old buildings are rapidly being converted to new uses. These changes often create relatively affordable commercial space in basements and ground floors. Places like the City, Old Street, Soho, Covent Garden, Farringdon, and King’s Cross. Further afield, we’re also targeting the high streets in areas where millennials tend to live, and where older pubs and bars are giving way to new experiences that better suit their tastes: think Kentish Town, Camden, Stoke Newington, Bethnal Green, London Bridge, Brixton, Clapham, Shepherds Bush and Ladbroke Grove.” The company was forecasting a pre-tax profit of £179,113 at the end of June, dropping to £107,146 in June 2017 before increasing to £210,481 in 2018.