Perth brewery raises $2m

Spinifex Brewing Co has completed one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns undertaken by a craft brewery in Australia and raised $2 million through Equitise.

According to the brewer’s offer document, the raising will help fund the establishment of a Spinifex brewery located within the WA Food Innovation Precinct and Spinifex Ale House in North Beach.

The campaign was launched privately last week and went public on Monday morning before closing on Wednesday morning, once it had reached its goal.

More than 720 investors participated in the raising.

Spinifex Brewing chief executive Adam Barnard estimated about 80 per cent of the money raised was from retail investors.

“We wanted as many smaller investors, rather than wholesale sophisticated investors, because that gives us a much greater number of brand ambassadors that would represent Spinifex and talk about Spinifex,” Mr Barnard told Business News.

“We could have raised privately or through the wholesale market but we chose deliberately to go down the crowdfunding path so we could have a large number of brand ambassadors/retail investors around Australia.”

He said the crowdfunding success was recognition of the importance of having a story behind a brand. 

Spinifex uses ingredients grown by Aboriginal food producers and donates 50 per cent of profits from the sale of its F88 beer to charities which assist veterans.  

“I think that’s why we were able to achieve such an outcome for a business that only started weeks before the country shut down for COVID,” Mr Barnard said.

“It’s been a very meteoric rise for Spinifex and it gives us a lot of confidence moving forward.”

Mr Barnard said sales had increased 30 per cent month-on-month.

Meanwhile, Fremantle-based electric bike company Tiller Rides is also completing a crowdfunding campaign this week, which is due to be completed tonight.

It had a goal of raising $2 million and, at the time of writing, had raised $1.2 million.