High growth home delivery seafood firm Ish Fish has caught the eye of one of Britain’s biggest investors.
Sir Charles Dunstone is injecting equity into the Grimsby start-up that saw huge demand during lockdown, and is retaining customers who flocked online.
And it marks a reunion of sorts with Grimsby for him, having co-founded Carphone Warehouse with David Ross.
Read more: Cranswick enters pet food sector as it snaps up Lincolnshire business
Garry Bainbridge and Joel Creasey launched Ish Fish in 2018, with distinctive branding giving it the edge over competitors as it promised high quality for high end customers.
It caught the attention of Freston Ventures, which sets its stall out as helping fund Britain’s brightest brands, including restaurant chain Five Guys, cycling label Rapha, hospitality space Boxpark and estate agency Strike.
Further strong sales increases are predicted by the founding duo, with new jobs likely to be created “across all parts of the business”.
“It shows if you have done the right thing people out there do want to invest in Grimsby,” Mr Bainbridge said, with the level of backing undisclosed. “They love the story around it, and they’ve also ordered from us a lot of times.
“It is a real milestone for the company, we can now push on and grow how we want - it will be a big 12 months for us now.”
Launched with a boat-to-box new age fish round mantra, building on the explosion in courier services and an existing seafood business, it moved from serviced offices to its own base on Grimsby’s Enterprise Village in late 2020.
“It is very easy to do business face-to-face here, but e-commerce is very different,” Mr Bainbridge said. “Freston is bringing to Ish Fish a team in London, the people who do all the work behind the website. It will really allow us to push it out there and get to those we want to reach.”
Mr Creasey added: “This far in we have done everything ourselves, and the big thing has been the brand, and behind it a return rate of 45 per cent. We have brand loyalty, those once and twice orders have become long term and many are still with us from when it started.”
Freston is headquartered in Notting Hill, with Sir Charles alongside a colleague who joined him at Carphone in 2000, Roger Taylor.
Disrupting markets is held up as a key desire, building on that success in the mobile market.
Keep up-to-date with all the latest developments - follow BusinessLive Humber on Twitter and LinkedIn.
