Startup Spotlight: Jnck Bakery
Jnck Bakery was founded by brothers Sean and Alex Brasill in 2021 as a passion project focused on the UK obesity crisis and lack of healthy food innovation. Seeing an opportunity to create something that makes a positive difference – and tasted good – they created the world’s first HFSS-compliant cookie. Now halfway through their 2nd funding round, the brothers share highlights of their startup journey.
What prompted you to start Jnck Bakery?
The vision of the business is to help make people’s lives a little bit healthier and happier. Our mission to achieve this is to develop innovative, healthy, and indulgent goods that are both delicious and sustainable. To this end, we’ve developed a healthy alternative to traditional, freshly baked cookies that contain 90% less sugar, 9g of protein, 10g of fibre, less saturated fat, and no palm oil. The cookies are HFSS-compliant, meaning they meet the UK standards of not being high in fat, sugar, and salt.
How has the fundraising journey been for you?
Fundraising for the business presented a sharp learning curve for us, which was a great experience. Fundraising isn’t the easiest activity in the world, but it’s very rewarding when it’s done successfully. It certainly takes up a lot of time and energy, but it’s brilliant to share your belief and vision with others, especially when it’s reciprocated.
The fundraising was probably made easier by the fact we’re an innovative, purpose-led brand looking to make a difference combined with the macro consumer trend towards healthier eating, which is being supported by both government and industry. Currently, 85% of consumers in the UK want to eat healthier but, for more than half of them, the barrier is being tested by the unhealthy choices on offer.
The UK’s SEIS and EIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and Enterprise Investment Scheme) also made our lives a lot easier. It’s great to see the government supporting new businesses with these tax relief schemes for investors. I’d highly recommend reading up on these schemes if you’re considering getting involved with a startup. The great tax relief available was one of the reasons we were keen to involve our friends and family in our first funding round.
What are your current challenges?
We’re looking to continue building the team this year with our first full-time hires, which is a really exciting part of the journey for us.
Wholesale has been a new challenge for us. The individuals we’ve been wanting to speak to haven’t previously been a part of our network, so it’s been something we’ve had to focus on developing. We’ve been networking hard and building out the team to help develop our network. We’re now available on Gopuff and in discussions with many exciting retailers.
The health tailwind versus the cost-of-living crisis headwind is also an interesting challenge for us. There’s obviously a macro influence in a health tailwind that is certainly in favour of healthier brands. Apparently, 86% of people now look for healthy snacks all of the time, which is a phenomenal change from where it would have been 10 years ago. But the cost-of-living crisis presents a potential headwind. We are hopeful this won’t impact us too much, as we believe we sit in the bucket of being an affordable luxury. Looking back at the recession in 2009, we saw that biscuit sales went up, as people try to find those smaller, more affordable bits of joy.
Partnering with the right M&A technology partner is so important. Having everything in one place and being able to move quickly and securely allows you to focus on the things that matter without distraction. This can make all the difference when it comes to investment, which can be an intensive and time-sensitive process.
How has M&A technology helped you to accelerate your startup journey?
M&A technology has helped us across every stage of the investment process. Technology has enabled us to create and edit detailed documents (e.g. Investment Heads Of Terms) quickly and effectively which has streamlined investor onboarding. Data rooms have supported the protection and effective communication of many of these important documents. Technology has also enabled us to create NDAs quickly (and track the signing of documents) which has allowed us to move at pace in numerous business areas including funding, product development, and sales. Essentially, M&A technology has allowed us to track investors and their investments (e.g. certificates, SIES/EIS compliance, cap tables) – all important in supporting investor relations. It’s also worth noting technology has enabled us to quickly build out options agreements (e.g. vesting terms for advisors/employees), which are a great tool to both attract and retain top talent.
Jnck Bakery spoke with Datasite about their startup journey. Datasite is a leading SaaS provider for the M&A industry, empowering M&A professionals around the world with the tools they need to succeed across the entire deal lifecycle. For more information, visit www.datasite.com.