Bamboo bicycle pioneers Wyld Bikes on track to raise $500,000 through crowd funding

Two social impact entrepreneurs are behind an innovative Brisbane start-up looking to raise funds to expand their bamboo bike making business.

Wyld Bikes is a profit-with-a-purpose business which will launch a crowd-funding offer this year.

It was a venture that sprung from a wild idea between two friends who wanted to build businesses that were “good for people and the planet”.

Launched in October 2021 by Natalie Simmons and Simon Doble, Wyld Bikes is Australia’s only supplier of handmade bamboo bicycles.

It is a business charged with the mission to have a sustainable social and environmental impact on every step of its supply chain.

Based in Newstead with a workshop at Jindalee, Wyld Bikes — which stands for What You Love Doing — is in a crowd-funding expressions of interest (EOI) phase that will close on March 7 though the sector’s largest platform Birchal.

Through the offer they aim to raise $500,000 and on Tuesday about 80 per cent of the EOI has been taken up.

“It’s marathon not a sprint,” said Ms Simmons who had a global management role with Flight Centre before taking the sustainable business path.

“It’s good in the sense that there are a lot of people who are interested in supporting businesses that are doing something good in the world.

“So we’re getting a lot of engagement from people who we have not engaged with before but also people that are in our circle ​and want to come on this journey of building a sustainable transport company doing good in the world.”

Wyld Bikes founders Natalie Simmons and Simon Doble.

The idea for Wyld Bikes took root after Ms Simmons met Mr Doble, who runs the charity SolarBuddy which aims to eradicate energy poverty for children.

“We started chatting and we became friends. We had a thousand and one ideas​ around building businesses that are good for people and the planet so we decided to start Barefoot Citizens which owns Wyld Bikes,” she said.

Ms Simmons, who is the chief operating officer of Wyld Bikes, said the business was a full profit e-commerce business, focused on the idea of profit-with-purpose.

“We work with a social enterprise in Ghana that employs mostly women who have come out of domestic violence situations and have been living in extreme poverty. We provide them with a safe place to work, a skill set and an above living wage and they hand craft the bamboo frames for us,” she said.

“For every frame that we produce, 10 bamboo seedlings are planted and we do that not for re-harvesting purposes but actually to stop soil erosion of fertile land. We then shift the frames over here through a carbon offset firm.

“We then work here with a number of different groups to uplift Australians whether they are unemployed or have disabilities or working with groups like the Men’s Sheds.”

Wyld Bikes frames are made from bamboo and built in Ghana.

Ms Simmons said bamboo bikes, which are a lot lighter but still strong with “a nice flex”, were unusual in Australia but popular in South East Asia.

“When people see them they stop, they stare, they want to ride them. They’re very engaged,” she said.

“Bike sales are booming and this will only continue in this post Covid environment where people are looking for a sustainable option to get to and from work, have a healthier lifestyle and buy products that are doing good and creating a positive impact for people on the planet.”

The company currently produce the Archi men’s bike and the Luca women’s bike prices at around $2000 as well caps and T-shirts. They are looking to release bamboo BMX bikes and ebikes within the mext six months.

Crowd-funding has become the go-to financing source for some of Queensland’s most exciting small businesses and start-ups.

Melbourne-based Birchal steered through eight Queensland crowd funding offers which raised $6.1m in the 2020/21 financial year.

This financial year some of the Queensland successes have been Tamborine Mountain-based Outland Denim which raised $892,000 and Gold Coast-based Black Hops Brewing which in its second crowding offer raised $2.2m in less than a day.

Black Hops Brewery raised $2.2m in a day through its crowd-funding offer.

Birchal managing director Matt Vitale, who co-founded the company in 2018, said the sector recorded an annual compound growth rate of about 70 per cent from 2018 to 2021 and believes it will continue to grow.

“If we look at overseas crowd-funding industries Australia was pretty late to the party,” he said. “The UK has probably the most mature industry globally and they’ve been operating for about 10 years and yet they’re still growing at about 20 per cent a year.”

The Australian industry is divided between three major platforms Birchal, Equitise and OnMarket with food and beverage the most popular crowd-funding sector followed by financial services and then sustainability.

Mr Vitale, who was a lawyer before he started Birchal, said cowdfunding fills the equity gap for many start ups or small businesses.

“Equity capital is one part of the funding mix that has previously been unavailable for small businesses,” he said.

“It opens up equity capital for businesses so they can raise money by issuing shares in their company. It’s not a magic bullet and the best companies use a variety of sources for capital.

“It not as easy as putting up an offer. It can be a difficult process as it should be. Businesses need to prepare financial statements and they learn a lot through the process.

“It’s not just capital they get but increased sophistication that they get through the process as well.”