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Gousto, the food delivery service backed by Joe Wicks, the celebrity fitness instructor, has become embroiled in a bitter corporate governance row after excluding long-standing investors from a deeply discounted share sale.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Gousto slashed its valuation from $1.7bn (£1.4bn) just over a year ago to less than $300m (£250m) last month when it secured £50m of new funding from some of its biggest shareholders.
The fall in valuation represented a cut of about 80% in 13 months, according to insiders.
Gousto has also secured another £20m in debt financing as part of its efforts to shore up its balance sheet, according to insiders.
While steeply discounted capital-raisings have become commonplace during the technology downturn of the past year, Gousto’s decision to shun investors holding just under 10% of its shares has sparked uproar.
The row has prompted several smaller shareholders to lodge complaints with the company’s board, which is independently chaired by Katherine Garrett-Cox, the former Alliance Trust chief executive.
Ms Garrett-Cox was hired in 2021 to bolster Gousto’s corporate governance standards as it seemingly headed towards a stock market flotation.
The meal-kit delivery company was founded in 2012 by Timo Boldt and James Carter, two former investment bankers, with the former winning the accountancy firm EY’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2022.
Mr Boldt quit his job at the age of 26 to set up the company.
Gousto sells subscriptions to recipe boxes and markets itself as offering healthy meals at value-for-money prices, with Mr Boldt describing the company’s ambition to become “the UK’s most-loved way to eat dinner”.
It has attained B Corporation status, which is awarded to businesses with strong ethical or environmental credentials.
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