Greenmont Capital Partners, a US investment fund specialising in natural products, has invested £1.5 million in food group Little Dish with the expectation that annual sales of the kids' brand will soon rise to £50m.

Bryan Meehan, a partner in Greenmont and the founder of organic food retailer Fresh and Wild, now owned by US supermarket chain Whole Foods, said:"We're trying to spot the brands of the future...there's no reason why this brand can't be doing £50 million in five years time."

Little Dish, which sells its cottage pies, pastas, sauces, custards and formage frais in Waitrose and Tesco, expects sales of £5m this year, up £3m on last year.

The group, which is not yet profitable, was founded in 2006 by American Hilary Graves to make chilled meals without salt, sugar or artificial colourings or flavourings for young children received £450,000 in initial funding from smoothies group Innocent Drinks and individual investors.

Ms Graves came up with the idea of making fresh foods for toddlers after coming across parents who admitted to giving their children ready meals - usually made with salt - when they were too busy to cook. "Parents would say: 'It makes me feel like a bad mother,' " Ms Graves said, adding that early sales of her dishes - colourfully packaged with little poems to attract children - took off quicker than expected. "There's no one in the chilled sector that does what we do."

Little Dish is the first British investment for Greenmont, which is raising between $50m (£25m) and $80m for its second fund. It put together its first fund in 2004 with $20m. Little dish hopes the relationship with Greenmont will help it expand into the US.

It hired Jane Hunter, previously marketing director of E&J Gallo Winery, as head of marketing, and hired a Unilever account manager, Tom Benton, as its commercial manager. Adam Balon, one of the founders of Innocent, sits on Little Dish's board.

Ms Graves, 37, moved to the UK from New York in 2000 to open the British office of the woman's website iVillage, which was sold to NBC, the US television network, in 2006. She tests her products on her own baby, who is 15 months old.