The Aroma Cafe (S.A.) is an Argentine coffee chain and a former British coffee chain. It was founded in London, England in 1991 and started in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2000. McDonald's purchased Aroma in 1999. It expanded the chain in the UK and in Argentina. McDonald's sold Aroma's London outlets to Caffè Nero in 2002 which rebranded the chain to Neros. The Argentine part of the chain was sold in 2004 to Freddo, an ice cream chain owned by Pegasus Capital. History Early history Aroma was founded by Michael Zur-Szpiro in 1991. When he was a student, Zur-Szpiro moved from Zug, Switzerland, to London to attend the London School of Economics in 1975 and said he found the city lacked a European style cafe that provides customers with straightforward snacks, delicious coffee, and delicious pâtisseries. He put his plan to start a café on pause for more than 10 years as he headed to the United States for schooling and being a consultant in Boston before going back to the UK. Zur-Szpiro grew interested in starting several cafes that would sell not just coffee and sandwiches but also products like packaged pasta and coffee packets. While he was employed at the London branch of Boston Consulting Group, in August 1989 he began putting together a business plan. Zur-Szpiro conducted research by visiting sandwich shops and snack bars. He spoke with the owners of the shops, commercial real estate companies, architects, designers, and people who sold coffee. Zur-Szpiro was fine with not having full ownership of his proposed new coffee shop, thought venture capital would be a good fit for the financially uncertain business, and desired an investment partner who would both provide consultation and be accepting of his plan to invest substantially in the coffee shop's design. In March 1990, the venture capital firm Alan Patricof Associates contributed £2.5million, which was 80% of the seed funding. Zur-Szpiro provided 15% of the funding while a third investor provided 5%. He received 44% of the coffee shop's ownership which by August 1991 became diluted to 38% after investors provided additional funds for starting two more shops. The investor Alan Patricof required Zur-Szpiro to personally manage the coffee shop so that Zur-Szpiro would understand the business better in relation to his ideas. Zur-Szpiro left his consulting position in March 1990. He enlisted the architecture firm ORMS Architects & Design to design Aroma