M Restaurants hits its £1.35m crowdfunding target in 60 hours
City favourite M Restaurants has raised £1.4m on crowdfunding platform Seedrs, beating its £1.35m target within 60 hours of launching its campaign.
The award-winning group, which currently has restaurants M Threadneedle and M Victoria, hit its target last night and is now overfunding to £1.5m, raising the money to aid expansion.
It plans to build M Social, a “local” version of the brand in Twickenham, and a private members’ lounge in its Threadneedle Street venue.
M Social will be situated opposite the train station and have 100 covers. The intention is that this new restaurant will be a home from home for residents, visitors and local businesses, founder and chief executive Martin Williams explains.
“Our success has been built on making fine wines and world-class steaks accessible; I wanted to reflect that in our fundraising and to invite our fantastic regular guests the opportunity to be a shareholder in their favourite restaurant,” says Williams.
“The appetite for buying a slice of M has been phenomenal – we thought the raise would take six weeks – not 60 hours!”
M is taking investments from £200, saying investors can expect to “double [their] money” by 2019, alongside receiving investor perks. Former England rugby player Simon Shaw OBE has made a six-figure investment.
M already has a consortium of investors including Credit Suisse’s Marisa Drew and retired footballer Andy Cole.
The brand also recently strengthened its board with the addition of Mike Xenakis, former managing director of Europe at Opentable.
M Threadneedle St won Best New Restaurant last year and the newer M Victoria is currently competing against Richard Caring’s Sexy Fish to win Best New Opening 2016 in the Restaurant Magazine Awards.