From humble origins in an outer suburbs storage shed, Beer Cartel have spent the last decade comfortably making a name for themselves as Australia’s #1 online craft beer store.
Providing Aussie’s everywhere with access to a tantalising range of carefully curated beers from around the world, Beer Cartel has watched itself blossom from would-be startup into an eCommerce powerhouse.
Founded by two beer-loving mates way back in 2009, their mission has remained unwavering; to put good beer into the hands of consumers.
Fast becoming Australia’s one stop shop for all things craft, Beer Cartel have experienced astonishing growth, with 2020 alone seeing 35,000 sales generating $4 million in revenue.
Comfortably positioned at the intersection of eCommerce & craft beer – two of Australia’s fastest growing industries – Beer Cartel set their sights on a raise that could help propel them even further into the hearts of Aussies everywhere.
Empowered by the biggest year since their inception, the company decided 2021 would be the year to step things up a notch, opening up the company to outsiders with its first ever public equity raise.
Honest beginnings, a simple philosophy, and guided by nothing more than passion, Beer Cartel’s success is an everyman story from which we can all learn.
More often than not, companies looking to crowdfund are typically in the earlier stages of their lifecycle, hoping to acquire the funds needed to get things rolling on a larger scale.
Compared to this standard profile, Beer Cartel was a near diametric opposite.
With more than 100,000 lifetime customers and over a decade of experience, they were in a far better position than many other ECF hopefuls who’d come before them. Such strong foundations made us not only more sure of a successful outcome, but more confident in our ability to properly sell their appeal to would-be investors.
Developing clear, concise, valuable messaging is one of the most difficult parts of any ECF campaign. Potential investors are often skeptical of any company with nothing but big aspirations to show for themselves, and selling people on a yet-to-be-proven idea can be a challenge at the best of times.
In this instance however, developing angles to excite investors was made nice and simple thanks to Beer Cartel’s undeniably impressive history.
Drawing on parallels between their strong revenue figures and the exponential growth forecast for Australia’s craft beer industry, it was a simple task to construct enticing copy that could sell the idea without needing to beat around the bush.
From there it was just a matter of tying it all together into an indisputably valuable opportunity.
As with all campaigns run through Birchal, an Australian crowdfunding platform, Beer Cartel had to go through a several week long phase to acquire expressions of interest (EOI’s).
This EOI phase is where you begin gathering interest from potential investors, warming them up to your idea and value, and getting them ready to make a decision when the time comes to invest.
The success of every raise conducted through Birchal relies heavily on the work done in this first few weeks. More often than not it’s these EOI’s who commit the largest amounts to the raise, and in some cases may even help you secure maximum limits without ever needing to open up to the public.
Going into the EOI phase of an ECF campaign with a clear strategy in mind is integral, and as such you need to ensure your strategy and key messaging are both cleanly refined, scrutinised and carefully monitored to achieve the best outcome.
Thankfully, with years of experience, data and proven figures to back them up, Beer Cartel’s value proposition was easy to craft. Concerns of risk, viability or genuine opportunity among would-be investors went out the window, and a combination of robust messaging, personalised copy and engaging creative resulted in a respectable 2533 EOI’s – the second highest total on any of our raises to date.
Coming off the back of a very strong EOI round, it came as no surprise that Beer Cartel flew past their minimum target in just 48 hours, comfortably passing the $500,000 mark before opening properly to the public.
The combination of great PR, ongoing news coverage and a strong opening week meant Beer Cartel showed few signs of slowing down, with investments continuing to roll in several weeks after their initial opening.
After a fortnight they passed by the $1 million mark, before finally closing at a total of $1.45 million, thanks to the combined investment of 1064 new shareholders after a total of 4 weeks.
There’s no doubt among any of us that Beer Cartel’s story is one worth learning from.
In today’s cutthroat corporate world of next-generation startups preaching life-changing technology or fabricating hazy promises about eating into Microsoft’s market share, there’s something satisfying about an honest company finding success in doing what they love.
When it comes to cutting through the noise and making a place for yourself in the ever-expanding world of global business, you don’t need to be the next big thing; you simply need the drive to create something people will love.
Now, armed with their newly acquired capital and a rapidly growing household name, Beer Cartel are primed to continue their growth right across Australia.
Happy to have helped yet another Australian business with a successful raise, we can’t wait to see where they go from here.
I would like to thank Glide and all the partners that worked with us through the equity crowdfunding process as well as those individuals that provided feedback and mentorship. We now embark on the next stage with Beer Cartel where not only are our customers, staff and suppliers massively important, but now our shareholders as well. To everyone that has joined, a huge welcome aboard.
