Renaissance Brew, the Marlborough-based craft brewery that made headlines last year as the company to launch the first ever crowdfunding offer in New Zealand, announced it is planning a second round of funding to expand its export market.
As previously reported, Renaissance Brew launched a campaign on equity crowdfunding platform, Snowball Effect, and quickly hit is crowdfunding target of $600,000. At the end of its funding round, the brewery raised $700,000. The funding took less than two weeks to raise the targeted amount as 287 investors decided to back the company.
The company was founded by two Californians back in 2005 by Andy Deuchars and Brian Thiel. Nearly a decade of their founding Renaissance led the way becoming the first ever equity crowdfunding offer in New Zealand taking advantage of a law that only went into effect earlier this year.
Josh Daniell, from Snowball Effect, was quoted on the success in The New Zealand Herald,
“The fact that the funding target was achieved in such a short space of time is a definitive endorsement of both the quality of the offer and equity crowdfunding itself,” he said. “The uptake is that several hundred entrepreneurial investors have now taken a stake in a wealth-creating Kiwi asset and have the opportunity to share in its success. We’re excited to see what Renaissance can do with this groundswell of support behind them.”
Now, according to New Zealand media outlet, Stuff, Renaissance Brewing development manager, Roger Kerrison, stated in about a year, the brewery will be looking to raise the similar amount of $700,000 to fund sale reps. Thiel explained that crowdfunding provided the business with the “short in the arm” it required to get things “cranking.”
It was also revealed that in the year to March 31st, the Renaissance Brewing posted a profit after taxes of $82,000 with revenue of $1.84 million. Thiel shared,“It is sustainable and, more importantly, achievable growth for us.”
Kerrison reportedly added that Renaissance Brewing produced about 400,000 litres of beer in the past 12 months and began exporting to Finland, Japan, Switzerland and Quebec, Canada taking its total export markets to 10.
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