Black Hops Brewing on Gold Coast offers stake in company for price of a carton of beer with equity crowd-funding campaign
Fancy owning a piece of one of the Gold Coast’s most in-demand breweries for the price of a carton of beer?
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FANCY owning a piece of one of the Gold Coast’s most in-demand breweries for the price of a carton of beer?
You can following the launch of an equity campaign by Burleigh Heads-based Black Hops Brewing with crowd-funding platform Birchal.
New rules for crowd-funding, which is a tool enabling investors to invest in start-up companies and small businesses in return for equity, were given the green light by the Federal Government in October last year.
Legislation was amended to allow private companies to raise up to $5 million each year without needing to becoming an unlisted public entity.
Investors can chip in as little as $50 up to a maximum of $10,000.
Black Hops started its campaign last Friday and aims to raise $400,000 by giving away shares equal to 2.18 per cent of the company.
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Within eight hours Black Hops had raised its minimum goal of $150,000.
Co-founder Dan Norris has been keenly following equity crowd-funding for a number of years.
“Now that it’s finally here, we are looking forward to being one of the first breweries to run a campaign, and the first to use equity crowd-funding to help fund the opening of a brewery,” he said.
Black Hops has already raised more than $270,000 from more than 250 investors.
Mr Norris said they range from sophisticated investors to ordinary workers who enjoy a schooner at the pub.
“One of the best things about crowd-funding is how great it is at building up a group of advocates and followers,” he said.
“Backers are likely to be fans and advocates of your business and thrilled to be part of the action. And what better advocates for your company than the people who are prepared to buy a stake in it.”
Funds raised will be used to complete the brewery and taproom fit-out under construction at a unit at 665 Pine Ridge Rd, Biggera Waters.
The new brewery will greatly enlarge Black Hops’ production capacity to 2.5 million litres a year with the option to increase that to five million with extra tanks.
The total cost of the new operation is between $2-3 million, with Black Hops raising $1.7 million in a previous funding round four months ago.
Mr Norris said he expects the premises to be ready next month.
The crowd-funding offer closes on February 14.
Mr Norris, Eddie Oldfield and Michael McGovern launched Black Hops in 2014.
In 2015 Black Hops launched its first brewery through a reward (non-investment based) crowd-funding campaign on Pozible (Birchal’s sister platform).
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