Majority stake in innovative pasta delivery business acquired by Italian food giant

Pembroke VCT, the venture capital trust focused on building the consumer brands of tomorrow, has successfully exited its investment in Pasta Evangelists, which delivers restaurant-quality pasta direct to customers by post. The innovative meal kit business has agreed a deal whereby Italian firm, Barilla Group, will acquire a majority stake. The value of the deal is undisclosed.

Since 2016, Pasta Evangelists has been delivering boxes of fresh, high quality pasta across the UK, to enable customers to prepare five-star homemade dishes in five minutes, using only the freshest ingredients, and Italian where possible.

Pembroke VCT invested £2million in Pasta Evangelists in January 2020. Since then, the home delivery sector has thrived during the pandemic, as consumers have sought interesting ways to cook at home during lockdown.

Pembroke VCT has sold its stake in Pasta Evangelists as part of the deal with Barilla. The exit represents a 2.3x return in the twelve months since Pembroke initiated its investment.

Andrew Wolfson, CEO of Pembroke commented; “Pasta Evangelists is a success story for UK entrepreneurship. Pembroke backs exceptional founders and this outcome demonstrates that innovative companies with strong leadership can flourish in even the most challenging of times. This is an exciting start to the next chapter for Pasta Evangelists and we wish it every success in the future.”  

Press Office

Zoe Powell
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Sarah Plevnik
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