Redemption Roasters to open 17 new sites with £2.7m funding

Redemption Roasters, the coffee chain which trains prisoners to work in its shops, has completed a £2.7m funding round to drive its expansion.

The group has opened 10 London coffee shops since 2017 and is planning to open a further 17 in the capital by 2026.

Redemption, which was launched by Max Dubiel, one of the co-founders of Black Sheep Coffee, and former solicitor Ted Rosner, said it had a pre-money valuation of £22m.

It has recorded over 60% year-on-year growth since 2019, with annual revenues forecast to exceed £25m by 2026, the company said.

The £2.7m funding has been provided by Australian financial services firm the Macquarie Group Foundation, R&Co4Generations (the Rothschild & Co Group Foundation), the Barrow-Cadbury Trust charitable foundation, and crowdfunding via Crowdcube.

Redemption will launch four new retail premises in London over the next few months and expand its wholesale coffee network, which currently has clients including KPMG, Meta and Amazon.

The group’s mission is to ‘reduce reoffending through coffee’ and works with the Ministry of Justice to provide barista and coffee technician training programmes in HMP Pentonville and High Down.

It also operates a roastery inside HMP the Mount where trainees work alongside the Redemption team.

Redemption has run 14 partnerships with UK prisons to date, and over 1,500 prisoners have taken part in its programme.

Those who end up employed at its shops have a 4% reoffending rate, compared to a national average of 38%.

Dubiel said: “As a purpose-driven business that has achieved phenomenal growth, we are very excited about this next chapter in our journey.

“The proceeds will drive further growth of our brand and help us achieve even greater profitability through scale. This will also enable the business to do more to help prison leavers and further deliver on our wider social ambitions to support coffee producers throughout the world.”