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Paddock-to-plate food delivery service Our Cow has closed out its capital raising on crowdfunding platform Birchal at almost $2.1 million, beefing up the company’s capacity to expand nationally.
The funding round, which was largely supported by customers, was quick out of the gates when it opened last month, securing $1.6 million in less than two days.
More than $100,000 of that was pledged in the first 15 minutes of the offer’s opening and $1 million within the first day.
The campaign was initially aiming to raise $2.6 million at $50 per share, which positioned the company on a pre-money valuation of $62.67 million.
Startups have been herding up milestones on Birchal recently with Our Cow's announcement coming within a week of the largest crowdfunding raise in Western Australia's history, at $2.7 million, for Old Young’s Distillery.
That figure, which gave Old Young's the largest retail crowdfunding raise in the current financial year to date, was reached in just 23 hours.
Based in the northern NSW town of Casino, Our Cow was founded in 2019 by local farmers Bianca Tarrant and Dave McGiveron to deliver meat products directly to consumers from local farms.
The company currently generates about $20 million in annual recurring revenue from more than 50,000 customers and supports more than 150 farmers across Queensland and NSW.
While its biggest consumer market is in NSW, the founders have set their sights on national growth plans.
Tarrant is especially chuffed that Our Cow’s customers have come aboard in a big way to support the company’s latest capital raising.
“Our customers have always been particularly loyal and enthusiastic about our product and service, and it was truly wonderful to see that translate to support for the company,” Tarrant says.
“We want to thank everyone who participated in the round which will go a long way to helping us with our goal to become the biggest and best food delivery company in Australia.”
Earlier this year, Our Cow snapped up the assets of failed grocery delivery service VOLY as the agribusiness sought to ramp up operations in its key metropolitan Sydney market with plans to expand into Melbourne.
The company has a processing facility in Casino and recently expanded its offering to include a fresh seafood line offering prawn and fish deliveries direct to consumers.
Our Cow plans to use the funds to grow its fresh food offering, to improve delivery times and to expand nationally.
The latest $2.1 million capital raising comes on the heels of a separate $2.4 million raise completed on VentureCrowd in mid-2022.
Birchal co-founder and CEO Matt Vitale says the campaign by Our Cow generated unprecedented interest. He says Birchal, Australia’s largest equity crowdfunding platform, ‘had never seen such support for a startup business’.
“We had never had more registrations for an investors webinar; we had to update our Zoom account to accommodate them all,” Vitale says.
“The strong consumer response to Our Cow had investors keen to get involved, as they continue to look to back strong growth businesses. It should be an encouraging sign for the startup community that investors are still backing businesses they believe in.”
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