Sweet Cred, which sells branded novelty confectionary, has received expansion capital of £5 million from private equity firm Octopus Investments. Alistair Brew from Octopus is joining Sweet Cred’s board, along with Harry Drnec, the former managing director of Red Bull.

Sweet Cred, which sells branded novelty confectionary, has received expansion capital of £5 million from private equity firm Octopus Investments. Alistair Brew from Octopus is joining Sweet Cred’s board, along with Harry Drnec, the former managing director of Red Bull.

Octopus has appointed Steven Joseph, chairman of Tangerine Confectionary, as chairman of Sweet Cred.

Based in Sidcup, Kent, Sweet Cred develops products that combine sweets with toys based on its cartoon characters. It sells to clients in Europe, the US and the Middle East. The company made a turnover of about £1.6 million and a pre-tax loss of £855,980 for the year ending December 2005.

Sweet Cred was founded in 2004 by chief executive Clive Garrad. He says that, after receiving global interest in the company’s products, ‘the time has come for us to really scale up the business’.