Check out this recent company that has emerged to serve growing early-stage restaurants.

www.nourishcapital.com

1. Please provide a two paragraph overview of your company.

Nourish Capital is an early-stage growth equity investment firm focused exclusively on the restaurant industry.  We fill a major void in the funding landscape that exists for multi-unit brands between friends-and-family and traditional institutional sources of capital.  Beyond capital, we provide a leveraged platform rooted in deep industry expertise which increases the probability that a restaurant concept can be successfully scaled.

We are looking to partner with entrepreneurs who think big and we will work tirelessly to help them grow intelligently, operate effectively, eliminate excess costs, mitigate risks and maximize the value of their brand. We focus on the fast casual brands with 2-10 units, as we believe in the “Chipotle effect” or that fast casual segment will continue to lead the restaurant industry overall in terms of growth throughout the next 10 years.

Our collective team brings 200+ years of multi-unit growth and operating leadership in the restaurant industry and the requisite investment and fund management experience.   In addition we have developed and will continue to grow a broad network of industry leaders and service providers who are eager to work with our portfolio companies.

2. Why did you create this business? What need in the market did it answer that was not being answered before or well enough?

Over the next decade a new group of leading growth restaurant brands will emerge, creating tremendous wealth for their founders and shareholders.

Resulting from shifts in demographics, economic disruption and industry cycles, new brands will continue to steal market share from old, tired brands locked into legacy infrastructure, historic locations and dated offerings that have lost touch with consumers. The next big winners will be more innovative, more capital efficient, more nimble, more customer experience focused, will better leverage technology and have more savvy management teams than their predecessors.

However, early-stage brands face a dearth of the right financing, strategic expertise and operational discipline required for creating real enterprise value.  Nourish will fill this void as the first strategic investment fund solely dedicated to providing growth capital and active, value add expertise to emerging early-stage multi-unit restaurant concepts.

3. What is your goal for the next three to six months for your company?

Over the next three to six months our goal is to identify and invest in our first portfolio company – a unique brand with goals and aspirations of becoming national or perhaps even international player.

Social media has become an integral part of not only how we pick places to eat but an invaluable business resource. Widespread development of digital media that happened within the past several years gives Nourish an additional powerful resource in finding, screening and evaluating potential investment opportunities. We now have access to an army of food writers and professional restaurant critics who publish their findings in real time. Social media resources such as Yelp, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, Foodspotting, etc. give Nourish instant insight into the wisdom of the crowd. Dining out is a hot topic among young and tech-savvy, and Nourish is fully utilizing the opportunity given by this trend.

{ 2 comments }