The Fareham pizzeria which now has hundreds of owners

Three Joes opened in the town’s shopping centre in 2017 and the business has proved so popular owners Tim Hall, Emma Blackmore and Peter Bruton decided to open a second restaurant in Winchester.

Tim said: ‘We had an amazing response from everyone at the Fareham branch for our specialised sourdough and so we decided to open a second which again has proved popular with locals.

‘We decided we wanted to expand further across the south with two more restaurants and have taken the decision to use crowdcubing to do it.

‘It means regular people can invest small amounts in local businesses and own a percentage of it. Usually you would need a one or two big lump sums from investors to open new sites but this way everyone wins as people can have the chance to earn extra cash from it and we get to bring our pizza to more people.’

The trio, who have previously worked for for Pizza Express, Ask and upmarket burger chain Byron, aimed to raise £400,000 for their business but were amazed after reaching the figure in just a couple of weeks.

Tim said: ‘We were not sure if we would raise all of it and thought even if we raise a hundred thousand or so that would go a long way to helping us so to have raised more than that in such a short space of time is really incredible.

‘It means a lot that people think our idea is worth investing in.’

The CrowdCube website has been running since 2011 and allows potential small time investors to view documents on the business plan and watch a presentation to understand the premise further before putting cash forward.

Tim said; ‘You get to learn everything before you invest any capital but we would say that there is risk with the investment and that is something people have to understand.

‘Investors also can’t sell their shares at any time as it is only when for example in three years we open the investing again and people can sell it on hopefully having made money or continue our journey with us.’