Friends Wynter Karo and Alice Parmiter returned to the UK from a trip to Mexico in 2020 with an idea for a tequila business.
Two years later, after scaling their start-up alongside full-time jobs, the pair closed an over-subscribed £545,000 (or about $675,000) pre-seed round led by Distill Ventures.
Back in August 2020, the friends told Insider, they couldn't shake the feeling that poor-quality tequila shots — the most common way tequila is consumed in the UK — were letting down the well-crafted tequila cocktails they'd had in Mexico.
The two started experimenting at home to create their own premixed tequila cocktail — a spicy margarita.
At the time, Karo worked as a propositions manager at Sky, and Parmiter worked in marketing at ASOS. While continuing in their full-time roles, they registered Pimentae with Companies House and immediately started saving money to invest in creating a premium tequila cocktail.
Between them, they managed to save £12,000 by March 2021. That money went into developing their first 1,400 bottles, website design, purchasing ingredients, consulting with a flavor house, and undergoing exams for personal qualifications and business licenses, according to the pair.
They officially launched the brand with an influencer campaign"We bespoke-created 50 aesthetically pleasing hampers so that when influencers received them, they couldn't help but post," Karo said.
In March 2021, they hand-delivered the gift baskets across London to influencers like Conor Maynard, Maya Jama, and Grace Beverley. They didn't ask the recipients to share their Pimentae hampers, but according to the founders, every influencer posted organically.
Within one month, Karo and Parmiter say their launch campaign had passed 500 sales amounting to £13,000. "That really put us on the map," Karo told Insider.
Using that money and £7,000 in further sales from their online shop and trade shows, they planned to secure a pitch and create an immersive event at Big Feastival — a UK food festival — that August.
"We put everything on the line," Karo said. "We emptied the business bank account and had to put half of the pitch fee on our Amex."
Both quit their full-time jobs to focus on the brand.
"We knew if we could sell the right amount of liquid, that we could double our pitch fee and have enough revenue to bootstrap our business for another four to five months," Karo said.
At the festival, they made back their whole pitch fee plus £20,000 more in revenueAs the summer can to an end, the pair still needed more capital to keep the brand running, so they started looking at fundraising options. They considered crowdfunding and venture capital as financing options, but settled on approaching angel investors.
"We needed the experience and rich knowledge that angel investors would provide," Karo recalled thinking.
At first, they tried cold contacting people on LinkedIn and online platforms but were unsuccessful. But at a pitching event at Brown Rudnick in May 2022, the brand won the most investable brand and the best pitch deck, receiving 20 hours of free legal advice as prize money.
One of the judges for the event decided to become an angel investor for Pimentae. With their first investor locked in, other investors started expressing interest.
Distill Ventures, an independent drinks accelerator, reached out in September 2022 and agreed to become the lead investor, Karo said.
They closed their pre-seed round in September 2022 having raised £545,000, or around $675,000, between 13 angel investors and Distill Ventures — far exceeding their original £250,000 goal.
Here's the pitch deck they used to do it.