What has happened at the ''Award Winning'' Pizza Rossa?

Pizza Rossa took Crowdcube by storm in 2013/14 when it raised £440k in 17 days.

It won various awards from the Crowdcube platform and was the winner of the LBS start up competition in 2013. The whole raise was based on the founders MBA credentials.

Seems it is harder to run a viable pizza business, using awards as the main ingredient, than they thought.

Shortly after the first Crowdcube success, the company had run out of cash and was back for more, raising another £160k this time. But no need to worry as the 'valuation' of the company had gone up 2.5 times! We have Crowdcube to thank for that. Of course predictions by us that their Saturday openings in the City wouldnt work, turned out to be true. How an MBA messed that up is anybody's guess.

So now they had the money, a little more experience and were good to go, toppings and all.

During an interview with Big Hospitality to promote the second raise, founder and chief executive of Pizza Rossa, Corrado Accardi stated, “We are confident that this new campaign will attract the attention of investors watching the steady growth of Pizza Rossa. Since we opened the first pop-up at Leadenhall Market in June, we have served in the region of 20,000 people – and that’s only a five-day a week operation. We opened at London Wall just three weeks ago, and we are extremely encouraged by the results to date. It seems that the City has really taken to Pizza Rossa, and it proves that our concept is right on target for this audience.”

Very sadly the new prime location at London Wall, seen here, has closed only a few days before its first birthday. No new openings have taken place anywhere since and the company that was to take over the London and then world pizza scene, has just one outlet, 3 years after first milking Crowdcube investors.

One lesson that most people with any savvy know, is that you dont build up a retail business opening and then closing units. It costs too much.

Accounts are not due out until next year but with an expensive shop fit, leases et al it will be sometime before this company gets back on track. First accounts since the initial raise were galaxies off the predictions.

It does seem odd to us that since this initial milking, nearly everything the CEO has predicted has turned out to be rubbish. Standards at LBS must have slipped somewhat since we went to Business School.

Surely we will have the pleasure of Corrado's silky tongue again - cash must be tight. Maybe he'll need to choose another platform this time though as the ever busy Crowdcube Undertakers Department are sure to box up his business shortly. We'll let know.