Cobra Beer turns over around £80 million per year and will be valued at about £100 million following a recent fundraising, cash it intends to use to enhance growth in Britain, India and South Africa.

‘This money will give us the best possible chance to take Cobra to the next stage of its development and, eventually, on to a float,’ commented Bilimoria, now Lord Bilimoria after being made a crossbench peer in May.

Cobra’s beer is brewed under licence in Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland Bedford and in Rajasthan, northwest India, but has come a long way since Bilimoria founded the company in 1989 with only a £20,000 student loan. Billed as ‘less gassy’, Cobra is intended as a perfect accompaniment to the UK’s favourite food and is now stocked in the majority of the nation’s 6,000 curry houses.

Commenting on the fundraising, Bilimoria said he was looking to expand further into the pub and hotel markets. Cobra also plans to ‘launch heavyweight TV advertising this autumn’, to improve presence in the supermarket sector.