Ready-to-drink Tequila cocktails maker Pimentae has raised £1.5m ($1.4m) in a new funding round to aid its entry into Europe and expansion in the UK, its domestic market.
Speaking to Just Drinks, co-founder Wynter Karo said the money would support the start of its export plans.
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“We’ve got pallets landing in Ibiza this summer and we’re also hoping to go live in the Netherlands, and… need more support on that side of things, to get more feet on the street out when we’re expanding into those markets”.
UK-based Pimentae is due to start selling in Ibiza in the coming weeks, Karo said, and pointed to a fourth-quarter for entry into the Dutch market.
The business is also hoping to expand further in UK retail. It sells its RTDs in Waitrose, Ocado, John Lewis and The Co-op but the business is “hoping to push into Tesco and Sainsbury’s”, Karo said. “They’re very much on our radar”.
When asked how Pimentae sets itself apart from what major retailers like Tesco and Sainsbury’s already have on shelf, Karo said: “We position ourselves as the specialist.”
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By GlobalDataPimentae is also available in travel retail and restaurants at London airports and recently launched on the British Airways airline.
Karo added she hoped selling through British Airways would “showcase to Tesco and Sainsbury’s that these are national consumers and the rate of sale is really strong”.
Elsewhere in Europe, Karo said France and Germany could be potential contenders.
“France, Germany, we’ll kind of see what those neighbouring markets look like for us, but it will all be about what opportunities come to us at a large volume, and then we can proactively look at those. But we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. Spain and Netherlands will be our case studies, and then we’ll roll out from there further afield,” she explained.
The female-founded business also plans to use the sum to bolster its seven-strong team to 10-11 employees and “supercharge” its “marketing efforts”, Karo said.
Pimentae works with 25 music festivals in the UK and plans to grow that to 35 by next year. “That’s a great customer acquisition tool for us, and we get to two/three million eyeballs over the brand whilst driving revenue at those events,” Karo said.
Founded by Alice Parmiter and Karo in 2021, Pimentae’s RTD range includes bottled and canned pre-mixed Tequila drinks in flavours such as Spicy Margarita, Tommy’s Margarita and Grapefruit Margarita.
With the latest £1.5m funding, the business is also planning to make a fifth flavour, which is set to be a “winter edition”, Karo said, “just so we can do seasonal pushes… growing out the range and SKUs we’ve got, so it can be all-encompassing and we’re really owning that Tequila category”.
The latest round was led by early-stage consumer fund FIGR Ventures. Other participating investors included Solo Investments, Revenge Capital and entrepreneurs Puneet and Poonam Gupta, the founders of paper business PG Paper Co.
The funding brings means Pimentae’s has so far raised £2.5m. Parmiter and Karo remain the majority shareholders of the business.
The group expects to raise a new round around the second quarter of 2026, Karo said, adding the exact sum needed “completely depends [on] what opportunities come into the pipeline, where the markets are, all of these kinds of things”.
“In budget”, the group has £2.4m in sales revenue for 2025, she added, “a nice, healthy increase from last year, which was £1.1m”.
