Member Article

Raw pet food brand, Bella & Duke, raises £7m to fund further growth

Scotland-based raw, natural pet food company, Bella & Duke Ltd, has announced a successful investment round of £7 million from a consortium of investors.

BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, has injected £5 million, with the balance provided by existing shareholders, including a further investment from Mobeus.

Bella & Duke was founded in 2016 by Mark Scott and Tony Ottley – two friends who agreed that existing mainstream pet food products did not give dogs and cats the best chance of enjoying long, healthy lives. Bella & Duke’s raw, natural petfood provides notable health benefits to pets, with over 92% of customers reporting an improvement in their dog within 8 weeks.

Bella & Duke has grown rapidly to post revenues north of £11m in its last financial year and delivers over 2m meals per month across Great Britain.

This new investment will accelerate marketing activity, increase factory capacity, and create further job opportunities at Bella & Duke’s headquarters located in Fife. Total employee numbers have also recently risen to almost 100, with further significant increases planned over the next few years as the business scales up.

Alongside the funding round, Peter Farquhar will join Bella & Duke as Chairman. Peter is the former Chairman of natural petfood brand, Forthglade.

Mark Scott, co-founder and CEO of Bella & Duke says: “Attracting this recent investment demonstrates the long-term potential for Bella & Duke and showcases the significant opportunity within the raw feeding category generally. Our mission is to provide all British dogs and cats with the best possible nutrition: raw food, with recipes tailored to take account of breed, life stage and any underlying health or welfare concerns.

The business has grown significantly in recent years due to the increasing consumer demand for natural, nutritionally beneficial pet food as well as the success of our subscription-based business model, that delivers frozen food from our factory in Fife directly to customers’ homes throughout Great Britain. This funding round will enable us to continue growing and we’re delighted to be working with our investors for the next phase of the journey.“

Graham Clarke, investor at BGF, says: “Providing consumers with high-quality raw pet food in a subscription-based model is proving a winning formula – and so we are delighted to be supporting Mark, Tony and the Bella & Duke team in their next phase of growth. We believe they are perfectly placed to deliver the new industry-standard of consumer pet wellness in Great Britain.”

Matt Mead of Mobeus says: “Bella & Duke has a great track record in the raw pet food space, and we know there is huge potential for this to continue. We’ve worked with the business for over a year now and have been impressed by the brand’s commitment to transforming the pet wellness sector. We’re excited to continue working closely with them to grow the business even further.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sandra Griffiths .