A vegan ice cream maker which is stocked in Ocado and Tesco has smashed its target for new investment in a crowdfunding campaign.

Perfect World has raised more than £148,000 from people eager to take a scoop of the growing "free-from" food market.

The Tunbridge Wells-based firm has developed ice cream which is gluton free, soya free, wheat free and dairy free.

It had aimed to raise £100,000 on crowdfunding website Seedrs as it aims to launch its vegan range in April.

Co-founder Keith Davidson, who lives in Tunbridge Wells, said: "Having exceeded our initial funding target by nearly 50% and counting, we are now able to look at ways in which we can achieve even faster expansion.

"We know that there is a lot of consumer demand for genuinely healthy and delicious treats like ours, so we are working hard to get it out to consumers everywhere.”

The business launched the UK's first stevia-sweetened ice cream in 2014 after its co-founder Chris Conklin spent about three years experimenting with natural alternatives to sugar and dairy.

"Having exceeded our initial funding target by nearly 50% and counting, we are now able to look at ways in which we can achieve even faster expansion..." - Keith Davidson, Perfect World

It launched in Ocado in 2015 and in Tesco in 2016, expanding to over 500 stores last year.

Mr Conklin said: "For 2018 we decided to drive our health attributes much further, so we spent a significant part of last year working on new recipes.

"Another big development is our new range has no animal products in it at all.

"The new range is vegan. This expands our consumer base and reduces our environmental impact, which is great for everyone."

Consumption of free-from foods grew by 38.5% last year according to Mr Conklin.

Perfect World, which was valued at about £2.8 million before the crowdfunding campaign, has also confirmed a listing in Jumbo, Holland's second largest supermarket chain, due to begin in April.