ThinCats brews up £1.2m funding package for independent pub company
Independent pub chain, Urban Village Pub Company, has received £1.2m to support working capital and refinance from leading alternative lender to mid-sized businesses, ThinCats.
Urban Village was founded by Ian Grundy and Gavin Drew in 2017, now operating a group of pubs across the South East of England. The company vision incorporates blending the best characteristics of village pubs with the more contemporary environment of an urban pub.
They work with small, local breweries, and specialise in unique offerings such as self-service fridges and craft beer walls with keg beers from some of the finest global breweries. The food is delivered from open kitchens, and focusses on hand stretched pizzas, sharing platters and pub classics. Most sites have a tennis table and they are looking to introduce further competitive socialising measures in some sites e.g. interactive darts, shuffleboard etc.
Gavin Drew, CFO, Urban Village Pub Company: “We have been very impressed by the flexible approach adopted by ThinCats and their desire to support our business, especially in a sector that has largely been ignored by high street banks despite CBILs availability.
“After the initial summer lockdown, our sites responded exceptionally well with strong like for like growth. Obviously, the further national lockdown is very frustrating for our industry but hopefully it will be short lived and we can respond in a similar fashion when we re-open for a second time! We are very much looking forward to working with Thincats in 2021 and getting back to full capacity and more.”
Stuart Thompson, director, regional business development, ThinCats: “The team at Urban Village are passionate and experienced, and their vision for the pubs under their umbrella is impressive. We are very happy to support mid-sized businesses with such dynamic management teams and look forward to seeing their plans for the future come to fruition.”
