Harvie just closed their latest funding round powered by community investment - they raised $251,255 from 149 investors between two Honeycomb campaigns to sponsor the growth of Pittsburgh’s best grocery service. This brings Harvie’s all-time dollars invested on Honeycomb to $487,790.
And what makes Harvie a unique business? Well, they are in the business of connecting Pittsburghers with local foods in an easy, online-only way. Customers get to select from over 600 products from local farmers, bakers, and other makers and get them delivered to their doorsteps. Customers also get the opportunity to join a CSA and personalize it for their tastes.
The other reason that we think Harvie is innovating the local food industry is that they offer a platform for local food producers to expand their reach across the city - and we know that because Honeycomb has helped fund several businesses that are on Harvie now!
Harvie grows on Honeycomb - three times
After their first Honeycomb investment offering, which raised over $236,535 from 181 investors, Harvie was able to exponentially scale up their business. They used the investments to fund a strong marketing team as well as improve Harvie’s distribution operations in order to scale.
“The number of people we were able to connect with through this investment offering, and who ultimately engaged in it was a nice way to let more folks know about our service providing home-delivered local groceries and the movement we’re ushering forward to support local food systems,” says owner Simon Huntley
Since running the investment campaign, Harvie has grown immensely. "We nearly doubled our business,” says Simon. “We've gone from nearly 200 local farm products offered on our platform to 600."
About a year later, Simon decided it was time to launch a second investment offering on Honeycomb - this time to invest in growth marketing, purchase more distribution equipment, and purchase more bulk packaging. This investment offering was funded at $124,000 from 82 investors.
Then, right off of that second investment offering, Harvie still needed to raise more money, so they went to Honeycomb again to maximize the funding and the community impact they could make on investors. This final investment offering raised $127,326 from 68 investors.
Community-minded businesses growing on Harvie and on Honeycomb
When I was scrolling through Harvie (and trying not to purchase all the local cheese on sight), I noticed something kind of incredible. There are so many businesses that are currently selling their wares on Harvie that once ran investment offerings Honeycomb!
One such business is Pittsburgh Juice Company, who were our very first Honeycomb investment offering. They received a bit over $38,000 in investments to purchase a delivery truck in 2017. I wonder if that very same truck makes deliveries to Harvie’s distribution center these days!
There’s also Rolling Pepperoni, a local Appalachia-inspired bakery which received almost $47,000 with Honeycomb investments to open their brick-and-mortar store in Lawrenceville.
Another business who’s come to Honeycomb twice now is The Pickled Chef. They received over $49,000 in 2020 from 44 investors to expand their production. They’ve recently run a Honeycomb investment offering around the same time as Harvie’s third, and received $75,000 from 74 investors.
What can we learn about these local food businesses and how they grow?
We know they’re community minded, for sure. When businesses finance their growth on Honeycomb, they’re paying back their community their loan plus interest. While they maybe could have gone to a bank, they found more strength in paying back the individuals they know have been supporting their businesses since day one.
We also know that they’re growing and thriving, thanks to platforms like Harvie which are increasing their reach across Pittsburgh. Local food businesses are able to get in front of more consumers thanks to the online platform, which means more business and more growth.
We love this example of a sustainable local economy at work, through a combination of sustainable local farmers, bakers, and makers, platforms that help them expand their distribution, and platforms like Honeycomb that help them find investors to grow.
Are you ready to grow your business? Let’s chat.
Whether you’re a growing startup like Harvie or a small family-owned business like The Pickled Chef, a Honeycomb investment offering can help your business grow with community investment. Learn more about Honeycomb by filling out the form below.