Crowdfunding experts in Brisbane next week following successful fund-raise by snow and adventure centre
Friday, 8 February 2019
International experts will be in Brisbane next week to teach entrepreneurs how to replicate the recent success of a local indoor snow and adventure centre and use the power of the crowd to raise growth funds.
Australian crowdfunding platform ReadyFundGo will be introducing crowdfunding campaign experts Bojan Smiljanic and Claudio Melfi to Brisbane-based businesses.
The visit by the two crowdfunding experts comes after Brisbane's Urban Xtreme raised $236,000 through an equity crowdfunding campaign which finished on 1 February, exceeding the funding target of $200,000. The funding will be used to help upgrade the Brisbane centre and support a national expansion.
In 2017, Urban Xtreme raised $38,000 on ReadyFundGo, by providing pre-launch early bird passes to investors. The centre (the first of its type in Brisbane) opened in October 2018.
Urban Xtreme founder Lindsay Davis said the original crowdfunding campaign on ReadyFundGo had shown that her business had broad-based support.
"The rewards-based campaign we ran through ReadyFundGo was helpful on so many levels - not only did it help us with initial operational costs and cashflow before launch but it also proved to investors that we had broad-based customer support for our idea," Ms Davis said.
"We were able to replicate our success on ReadyFundGo through a separate equity crowdfunding campaign on PledgeMe.
"Our two successful crowdfunding campaigns have illustrated the strong potential of crowdfunding as a business fund-raising tool, including as a way of helping our business to grow without getting into debt."
ReadyFundGo's CEO Jill Storey said: "I am very excited to see that Lindsay – as one of our platform's alumni – has just completed a successful equity crowdfunding campaign."
"We look forward to being in Brisbane to help other local entrepreneurs work the power of the crowd to raise the funds they need to grow.
"With media reports that small businesses are facing a post-Royal Commission credit crunch, due to tighter lending standards from banks, crowdfunding is likely to be increasingly important to businesses who need cash to grow."
Mr Smiljanic and Mr Melfi have collectively helped businesses crowdfund $4.6m around the world. They will be revealing the secrets behind $1 million crowdfunding campaigns at The Precinct, 315 Brunswick Street at Fortitude Valley, between 5:30pm-7:30pm, on Monday, 11 February. There is a $20 entry cost.
On Wednesday, 13 February, between 3pm-6pm, Mr Smiljanic and Mr Melfi will be running at workshop at QUT to help campaign creators develop their pre-campaign strategy.
The ReadyFundGo Crowdfunding Academy has received support from the Australian Government's Entrepreneurs' Programme with the aim of helping innovative Australian business go global.
In October last year, the Australian Government commenced its new legal framework to support equity crowdfunding, under which public and private companies can crowd-source up to $5 million in funds a year by selling shares to retail investors.
ReadyFundGo operates a different model - known as rewards-based crowdfunding - under which businesses raise growth funds from existing or potential customers, in return for delivering special privileges for these customers in the future.
"Importantly, rewards-based crowdfunding can help create an immediate cash-flow and customer base and allows businesses to test the potential of new products and services, without getting into debt. This is particularly important, given that it appears to be getting harder and increasingly expensive to get business loans," Ms Storey said.
