A tailored invoice finance facility from Optimum Finance is helping a London-based craft brewery to expand, launch new craft beers, open new tap rooms and forge new partnerships.
Todd Matteson of Battersea-based Mondo Brewery Company said he decided to look beyond ‘traditional’ lending and overdraft solutions to a cashflow funding tool better suited to his company’s needs.
Invoice finance uses receivables (invoices) as the principal asset against which money can be raised. Optimum Finance pays Mondo an agreed percentage of the invoice value as soon as it is submitted, driving access to liquidity at the point of invoice as opposed to needing to wait. In this case, Mondo also retains the management of its sales ledger and therefore its customer relationships.
Matteson (pictured) said: “Mondo is crucially centred around the customer experience and Optimum Finance gives us the freedom and control to chase late payments, rather than leaving it to somebody our customer doesn’t know.
“Optimum advances 85% of the invoice value, with access to up to £250,000 at any one time, and this is a tremendous benefit in paying our own suppliers and giving us greater flexibility in our purchasing decisions.”
Mondo buys hundreds of kilograms of hops and many tons of malt weekly, along with the chemicals necessary to the brewing process. It creates around 45,000 litres of craft beers every month to a total of approximately 5,000 hectolitres a year. Its beers can not only be found in London, but also across mainland Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, and the East Coast of America.
Having navigated the pandemic, business volumes have recovered and Mondo’s performance in 2022 was 60% up on the previous year.
Matteson added: “We have plans to open a number of additional tap rooms around London, to add to the partnership we’ve had in place since 2015 with London’s Dishoom Indian Restaurant to supply their beers. We’re also partnering with Joe Public pizzas in Clapham and most recently opened a food stand in Borough Market to offer Mondo beer and pizza so there is plenty on the horizon.
“The end goal is for Mondo to open a bigger retail unit in the coming years, and with Optimum Finance’s continued support, anything is possible.”