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By Gillian West | Social media manager

April 27, 2015 | 3 min read

Frozen yogurt brand Lick has made shares available to the public as part of a crowfunding effort to help the brand expand and reach greater heights.

Publically backed by Innocent Drinks group head of brand and creative Dan Germain, Lick was created by Ky Wright and Owain Williams in 1998 and since the end of 2013 the brand has been focused on national distribution in retailers including Sainbury’s, Waitrose, Whole Foods, Londis and more.

Speaking to The Drum, Lick’s head of creative, Thomas Lavis, explained the brand’s decision to crowdfund the next part of its story was down to its “loyal following” and because going through the bank is “all so boring”.

“You come to a time when you need more money in order to maintain the rate of growth,” said Lavis. “In two years we’ve gone from making Lick tubs ourselves under our shop to sell to local cafés, to supplying Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Ocado. It’s important we keep growing at this rate because we’re an independent business which is competing with massive businesses like Unilever.”

Using Crowdcube.com Lavis revealed the brand is expecting to end up with around 300 shareholders who’ll get to be “part of something really exciting”.

“It won’t be a ‘thanks for your money now go away’ vibe at all,” he added. “We see the value in having people around us who can inspire us with ideas and offer advice, and we really enjoy that. We want to communicate with our investors, so we’ll hold shareholder events and send regular updates.”

Commenting on Germain’s involvement, Lavis said his experience from being at innocent “since day one” building “the brand, the tone of voice, the advertising, and the clever marketing techniques you’ve heard about” made him a great ally.

“I like Dan a lot – I feel like we have a lot in common. He did well at his job because he just wanted to have fun, and that’s what I’m doing at Lick. We can’t thank Dan enough for the time he’s given us over the past few years. I keep meaning to send him some flowers. Hopefully he’ll read this and see the thoughts been there,” he joked.

With over a week still to go Lick has already smashed its minimum goal of £200,000 which will go towards staff, product development and marketing.

“There’s three of us [Wright, Williams and Lavis] are full time doing literally everything. We want a logistics/ops person, another sales person and maybe a book keeper. We have new products to develop, a new product to launch and marketing ideas which need some funding. It’s a really, really important year for us,” he added.

Last week craft beer brand Brewdog also revealed its plans to crowdfund investment in its hotels and sour beer plans.

Crowdcube Crowdfunding Dan Germain

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