Partner Article

Former City Lawyer Secures Nearly Half a Million Pound Funding Round Investment from Industry Titans for Recipe Tech Startup

Plate Up, the free recipe-to-shop app, solving one of the biggest daily frustrations for UK households: ‘what's for dinner?’, has closed nearly half a million pound funding round, exceeding its £400,000 target in just six weeks. The oversubscribed round attracted heavyweight investors from the retail and hospitality sectors. Shareholders include Roger Burnley, the former CEO of Asda, Michael Hughes, the CEO of the OCU Group, Mukid Chowdhury, the CEO of Trading 212, Mensahy Cohen, the former FD of the Spiced Taylor and celebrity chefs like Thom Bateman, Martyn Odell, Dean Edwards and James Wythe.

The funding marks a significant milestone for founder and CEO Conor Boyle, 42, a former project finance lawyer who left the legal profession in 2021 to pursue his vision of making healthy home cooking accessible to everyone. Boyle's journey from the City to startup founder saw him bootstrap the business as he developed it to be a MVP, ensuring company resources could be directed toward product development and growth in the first few years.

Now having proven market demand and a loyal customer base of more than 10,000 monthly active users, with over 50,000 registered users and thousands more being added each month, the business is in its next stage of growth, having achieved substantial revenue-generation, and being considered by many as a disrupter in its market. 

As well as raising funds, Plate Up has also onboarded an industry giant as an advisor. Zoe Collins, the former Managing Director of Jamie Oliver Group, has joined the team as a creative and commercial advisor. 

The investment round also attracted celebrity chefs who serve as both investors and Chef Ambassadors, including Thom Bateman, who has over 4.1 million social media followers and owns several restaurants. Other chef ambassadors include food waste advocate Martyn Odell (1.5 million followers), BBC Masterchef star Dean Edwards (1 million followers), and health coach James Wythe (1 million followers).

The new capital will fund strategic partnerships with retail and brand partners to keep the Plate Up app free for all users, enhance the company's AI recipe recommendation algorithm, improve meal planning functionality, and expand community education initiatives around cooking from scratch.

"Making the leap from law to founding Plate Up wasn't easy, but my experience advising clients on complex commercial deals prepared me for the challenges of building a startup," said Boyle. "The fact that industry leaders like Michael Hughes, Roger Burnley and Zoe Collins – executives who have grown and led businesses with hundreds of millions to billions in revenue – believe in our mission validates everything we're building." 

Unlike competitors that charge subscription fees, Plate Up remains committed to providing free access to healthy recipes, addressing a growing need as families face rising food costs and time pressures. “Across the UK, families are stuck choosing between options that are expensive, time-consuming, unhealthy, or all three. Recipe boxes lock people into subscriptions with inflated prices. Traditional recipe apps leave people to figure out the shopping themselves. Supermarket shops lack inspiration and lead to food waste. And when good intentions fall apart by mid-week, budgets creep up and dinnertime becomes another hassle.” Explains Boyle.

He added: “For most households, the biggest barrier to cooking at home isn't the cooking itself - it's the planning. Plate Up removes that block entirely and there are no subscriptions, no mark-ups, no waste. Simply pick the recipes you love, add everything to your basket in a few taps, and get cooking. The entire weekly shop can be completed in just three minutes.”

On Plate Up, users choose from hundreds of recipes developed by celebrity chefs like Tom Kerridge, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and Jade Greenhalgh, then get all the ingredients delivered at supermarket prices from Sainsbury’s or Tesco - all without leaving the app.

Boyle believes it’s the simplicity and ease that’s attracting consumers, rapidly expanding their user base growth, and he feels it’s the company's transparent approach with investors, providing quarterly updates on both successes and challenges, that has built their loyal shareholder base.

The Plate Up vision is to reach hundreds of thousands of households across the UK, helping families achieve healthier, more affordable meals through the app.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chocolate PR .