The first thing that strikes you when you visit the offices of PerfectTed is the attention to detail.
The UK’s leading matcha brand found fame when they appeared on Dragons’ Den in 2023 and received offers from all five Dragons.
Eventually they opted to go with Peter Jones and Bartlett for £50k in exchange for 10 per cent of the business.
At the time, Jones quipped: “I think we’re going to make matcha lot of money.”
He was half right. PerfectTed’s founders – Marisa Poster, husband Levi Levenfiche and his brother Teddie Levenfiche – decided they didn’t need Jones’ expertise after all and went all in with Bartlett.
Bartlett quickly saw the potential and invested another £1m and is now an integral cog of the PerfectTed machine.
PerfectTed has just announced a major new round of investment led by Felix Capital, giving it a valuation of £140m as it strives to become the world’s first billion-dollar matcha brand.
Today PerfectTed is based on an entire floor of Bartlett’s London office building.
They’re situated below the recording studio of Bartlett’s hit Diary of a CEO podcast.
I’d been invited for a tour of Bartlett’s Flight Story office, which is how I came to make my unannounced visit to PerfectTed.
You immediately know where you are by the huge green PerfectTed sign and the mock green English Heritage plaque that reads: ‘PerfectTed 2021 – Creator of the most delicious matcha energy products was born here.’
Details
As you walk through the office door, you’re greeted by a shoe rack packed with green coloured Crocs, which is the startup’s way of paying homage to Japan, which is where they source their matcha.
“We spend a lot of time in Japan,” explained Levi Levenfiche. “We’re in Japan every eight weeks or so, building our relationships.
“In Japan if you walk into someone’s home or office it’s customary to take off your outside shoes and you’re given inside shoes, normally slippers.
PerfectTed co-founders Levi Levenfiche, Marisa Poster and Teddie Levenfiche
“Crocs are our modern twist on that traditional ritual. The idea is to bring that love for Japanese culture into the workplace despite being so far away.”
The one thing you can’t miss about PerfectTed is just how green everything is – and I mean everything.
The walls are green, the tables are green and the chairs are green. Even Poster’s coat and nail varnish are green.
“Everything we do is green,” admitted Levi. “The reason everything is green is because when we started the business there was no budget for Out of Home (OOH) and Above the Line (ATL) campaigns. We thought the best way to own a brand was to own a colour.
“Everything around our brand is green. We only wear green clothing. Marisa’s nails are green, my hair was green last year.
“We’ve not asked the team to wear green but when I look around the room everyone is embedded in the culture and feels part of something when they’re wearing green. We’re trying to build that PerfectTed internally with the team and externally with our community.”
Bartlett was away on a speaking tour of Asia at the time of my visit but his influence is not far away.
“The founders speak to Steven every single day, without fail,” said Levi. “Obviously Steven is a big fan of the business. We’re extremely close. We’re always bouncing ideas off each other. When he’s in the UK he’s always up here in our office spending time with the team.”
The Dragons’ Den star’s reputation for detail has clearly rubbed off on PerfectTed.
For example, Bartlett gives his guests a personalised photo album after their Diary of a CEO interview.
I was reminded of that as I sat down for a photo with PerfectTed’s three co-founders. Suddenly one of the team noticed there were no matcha products in shot so we did the photo again. I could see Bartlett nodding his approval all the way from Singapore!
This display of attention was not just for my benefit. At Levi and Marisa’s recent wedding, Teddie can be seen clutching a can of PerfectTed in one of the photos. The only surprise was the trio weren’t wearing green.
Sitting behind the slick branding is Poster’s compelling story.
After finding that coffee and conventional energy drinks worsened her ADHD and anxiety, she turned to matcha and noticed an immediate improvement.
However, she quickly realised how hard it was to access good quality matcha in the UK so she launched PerfectTed with brothers Teddie and Levi Levenfiche in 2021.
Following a much-publicised appearance on Dragons’ Den, the business ‘exploded’, going from three staff to the current total of 35 with plans to be at 80 by the end of 2026.
PerfectTed’s growth strategy has been underpinned by social media.
“Social media is absolutely paramount to our business,” explained Levi. “Going back to when we started the business there was no budget for massive marketing campaigns so we built everything organically on social.”
Chris Maguire visited the offices of PerfectTed
Like Bartlett, the co-founders are clearly the attack brand but all the staff are encouraged to raise their own profile.
“We’re big advocates of ourselves and our team building their personal brands,” said Levi.
“A lot of people are focused on user-generated content, as are we, but we’re also really focused on employer-generated content.
“Many companies don’t like this but we love the fact that our marketing, financial, ops, sales teams are all building their personal brands themselves on LinkedIn.
“If that comes at a cost of them becoming poachable targets for other companies that’s fine because we’re confident of retaining our talent.
“We want people to feel they’re owners in this business. We’re advocates of our team posting on LinkedIn, building their personal events, speaking at events and being experts in our field.
“We’re obsessed with building the greatest team in the world and the greatest culture. Our team feel like they’re custodians of the brand.
“As a result, everything that they do, they do it as if it’s their business as well.”
PerfectTed’s relationship with Bartlett was cemented still further when the startup took space in the entrepreneur’s Flight Story HQ in Shoreditch.
“We’re an autonomous business in that we’re run independently,” said Levi. “Of course Steven, the team at Flight Story and the DOAC team have been incredible, and continue to be incredible, along the journey.
“They’re our biggest fans and we’re their biggest fans and together we’re building PerfectTed.
“It’s incredible to be around such an ambitious group of people. The DOAC team is on the floor above us and the Flight Story team is below us.
“The innovations that they’re leading in AI, in media, inspire us in so many ways. There’s so much cross collaboration between our departments.
“Our marketing team will work with them on ideas around podcasts, media and product.”
The three co-founders have a range of backgrounds in management consulting, private equity and venture capital – and it’s clear they don’t want to go back to that.
Levi himself decided not to pursue an offer from Harvard Law School to become a lawyer in favour of PerfectTed.
“We’ve invested a lot in the office and the environment,” he said. “We spend a lot of our lives in the office. Having come from a corporate background, which we really didn’t enjoy, we’ve tried to build the culture in the office so you feel like you’re at home.
“We come from the finance world and we worked in corporates so long. It’s really hard to find an incredible culture in corporates.
“Everything we’re trying to do is reverse engineer the best working environment so that our teams feel as though they can be their best selves when they turn up to work.”
PerfectTed is now the UK market leader for matcha – supplying more than half of the UK’s in-store grocery market share for matcha, with listings in Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s.
812% sales growth
It has witnessed a 812 per cent year-on-year sales growth with turnover approaching £50m.
PerfectTed is now sold in more than 50 countries, with export accounting for around a quarter of their revenue.
“We’ve really built a strong presence in the Netherlands,” said Levi. “We’re doing the same in the Far East. We’ve just launched in Australia, which is really exciting. We’ve got a number of exciting launches in the rest of this year and the beginning of next.”
The recent investment from Felix Capital saw PerfectTed’s valuation soar to £140m, but Levi insisted this was not their priority.
“We think about value over valuation,” he said. “That’s one of our mantras. We’re so focused on building the best environment, culture, products, brand and business. The financial press takes care of itself.
“What drives us isn’t money or the valuation. It’s the love of what we do. We love building. The second is an obsession with doing legendary things. We feel like we’re building a household brand.”
Unsurprisingly, Bartlett’s hasn’t been backwards about coming forwards when it comes to how big he thinks PerfectTed could become.
“After the Den, I became so convinced that they will build a billion dollar brand, own the matcha category and disrupt the coffee category – that I invested a further £1m,” he wrote on LinkedIn last week.
“What happened next confirmed ALL of my suspicious.
“Some people don’t like to hear about hard work on LinkedIn but it’s important to be honest. They (Levi, Marisa and Teddie) have worked like they were possessed for the last three years.
“They have given everything, skipped honeymoons, holidays and sacrificed in a way most people would be unwilling to sacrifice.
First Dragons’ Den unicorn
“I believe they’ll be Dragons’ Den first unicorn.
“There is so much doom and gloom about the UK at the moment.
“Entrepreneurs increasingly believe that you have to be in the USA to build a great business.
“PerfectTed, a group of 20-somethings, have proven that greatness is still possible, right here in the UK.”