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It took just over an hour for Australian crowd sourced funding (CSF) platform Birchal to hit its maximum target of $3 million invested yesterday, with nearly 600 individual investors joining the company’s equity crowdfunding round on its very own platform.
The equity crowdfunding capital will be used to scale the CSF platform’s ecosystem in Australia, which has facilitated $100 million to date in funding for Australian startups and SMEs.
After opening the raise at midday yesterday, Birchal blasted through its initial target of $2 million in 40 minutes, before becoming fully subscribed half an hour later.
This compares to the success seen by Birchal alumnus Zero Co, which hit its maximum target of $3 million in just 47 minutes last year - overloading the CSF platform's systems in the process as 2,500 registrants flooded the website to join the raise.
"It was fast, and a great result, but it’s not about breaking records for us. Closing the offer quickly has meant we can get back to supporting our clients as soon as possible," Birchal co-founder Matt Vitale said.
"We have been blown away by the response. We were confident we’d reach our maximum target quickly, but really didn’t expect it would have been over as quickly as it did.
"But it’s a tremendous result, because now we can get back to work and support the many companies we are helping to prepare their own CSF Offers. It’s shaping up to be a really strong finish to the financial year."
As Melbourne-based Birchal has now reached the maximum target before the offer closes in eight days, any new investments will only be approved if someone pulls out before the final cut-off date on the 28th of April.
Speaking to Business News Australia when the raise was announced, Vitale said the decision to rase the money came at a time when the CSF platform was in a strong financial position.
“We’ve got lots of plans. Raising this capital will help us to accelerate the progression of those plans,” said Vitale, who co-founded Birchal alongside Alan Crabbe.
“An ecosystem of products and services will be needed to build out this industry. Our current service is that primary capital piece, and it’s a very efficient and compelling solution.
“Thinking about it as an asset class, there’s really four pillars: primary capital, secondary trading, stakeholder engagement and infrastructure. That will shape the things that we will be building over the next few years.”
The raise will allow Birchal to build out these pillars, and continue to support other companies looking to go down the CSF route for investment.
Previously, companies such as Sneaker Laundry and Australian Honey Ventures have used Birchal’s technology to raise $900,000 and $1 million respectively.
Other successful raises on the Birchal platform include First Nations-owned Sobah which notched $1 million and sustainable fashion company Outland Denim.
The platform was also behind some of Australia's top CSF raises in 2021, including Unhedged, Medibis, Bubble Tea Club and Good Empire.
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