One Year No Beer (OYNB) has surpassed its crowdfunding target, raising 126% more than its planned £500,000 to help scale up the business.
Investors backing the alcohol behaviour change initiative helped break its funding targets within minutes of launch.
The money will be invested in new technology to provide new content on its apps, improve engagement and further scale its lifestyle support system.
Edinburgh-based OYNB was launched as a free service in 2015 by founder Ruari Fairbairns, who decided to take a break from alcohol following social, peer and corporate pressures.
The company has so far raised more than £1.8m from more than 500 investors, including ex-Facebook director Mark Cowan; chief executive and founder of Spartan and Death Race, Joe De Sena; and former global head of mergers and acquisitions at HSBC, Alain Renaud.
OYNB now has more than 80,000 members in 137 countries and has generated more than £2.2m in revenue, with 85% growth in its alcohol-free challenge sales between February and June this year.
Fairbairns said: “The growth of the alcohol-free movement is booming and investors are recognising that there is a huge opportunity to grow a valuable business in this emerging sector of preventative health.”
Alain Renaud, one of OYNB's investors, commented: "Life post-Covid will need, amongst other things, a global detox for people to have again normal, healthy lives.
"Prohibition is not a solution, as we have seen in the past, raising prices of alcohol will just make unhealthy users drink even worse quality of cheap alcohol and encourage traffic."
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