Crowd-sourced funding (CSF) is a relatively high-risk way of investing for investors.
But it also gives investors the opportunity to buy shares in smaller businesses and niche market segments, like honey.
A good example from recent years is Australian Honey Ventures. APIA Honey too, was originally thought to be another example
Both are Western Australian start-ups and both were thought to have successfully raised capital via the crowd-funding platform operated by Birchal Financial Services Pty Ltd.
Australian Honey Ventures was founded by Jay Curtin in 2019 with part-owners including former reality tv star - Nick the Honey Badger Cummins (pictured at right)
Curtin's company is a packer and marketer of local honeys and has raised some $3.8million to date in four separate campaigns. (An initial $750,000 in June 2021, and then $2million more in March 2022, and a further $670,000 in March last year.)
AHV’s latest successful crowed-funded campaign, in April this year has seen some 210 investors tip in another $350,000.
Even so, the cash-flow statement issued with the latest campaign offer document seems to suggest that all bar $125,000 of the capital previously raised has been spent.
And although sales have jumped to $350,000, and are growing strongly, cash burn is still an issue.
So to save money, AHV is closing its honey-packing warehouse in Perth and re-locating to the honey plant at Gingin owned by AHV chairman, Stephen Fewster.
Another WA honey business that was also thought to have succeeded in raising significant sums via Birchal recently was APIA honey.
Indeed this blog post originally reported that the company successfully raised some $600,000 in August 2023.
However founder Lloyd Jones has recently emailed (January 2025) to say that the fund-raising via Birchal didn't actually happen. And that it was cancelled.
The original post relied on the information published at the Birchal web-site where Jones is quoted as thanking those who had already invested.
(See https://www.birchal.com/company/apiahoney/activity).
Indeed the Birchal web-site reports only that the fund-raising had closed, and says nothing about a cancellation.
Moreover the company's fund-raising campaign is still featured on the Birchal web-site at "https://www.birchal.com/content/feature/startup-daily-crowd-sourced-funding-market-wrap-4"
In any event, the main point is that APIA, like AHV, has successfully secured registration of WA honey varieties with Australia’s Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) and hopes to earn a share of both local and international markets for consumer-oriented therapeutic skin ointments and treatments.
For more information go to
www.australianhoneyventures.com.au