Much-loved Townshend Brewery are seeking crowdfunding to grow their business.
Motueka-based Townshend are looking to raise around $500,000 to fund growth and are taking expressions of interest on the platform Equitise.
Express Your Interest – Townshend Brewery – Nelson NZ (equitise.com)
It’s quite some journey for the one-time one-man operation.
Martin Townshend started the brewery in 2005 and won Champion Brewery at the NZ beer Awards in 2014.
But he came close to packing it all in a shortly after that when they tried to leverage their Champion Brewery status and push growth via contract brewing at Tuatara.
They pulled back and focused on their local area — moving from Moutere to a new brewery in Motueka, just behind the hugely popular Toad Hall cafe.
They hired a general manager, Antony Burke, their Sutton Hoo Amber Ale won a Top-30 spot in the New World Beer & Cider Awards a couple of years back which helped with national exposure and they have recently moved entirely to cans.
Now they are ready for further expansion.
“The key reason for raising the money is to help accelerate growth,” Burke said. “The business is currently profitable so moving forward whatever we raise will be put to good use expanding the business.”
To grow the business meant either selling a stake in the brewery, funding it themselves or going the crowdfunding route.
“When we looked at crowd funding we realised a brewery our size hadn’t done that for a while.”
In terms of small brewery crowdfunding, the most recent example is Three Sisters which successfully raised $520,000 last year. The amount Townshend are aiming for is a long way from the likes of Parrotdog and Behemoth, who have each done three multi-million-dollar campaigns.
In their pitch to investors, Townshend noted:
- Amongst a backdrop of difficult trading conditions, the brewery has continued to grow year on year to $700k in revenue and a $126k in net profit, 18% net profit margin (FY23) coming off a strong and profitable FY22 with a 13% net profit margin.
- The new brewery was fitted with solar panels in 2018 to run the brew house. We use recycled packaging where possible and we have a 60,000L water tank that collects rain water off the building which we use for cleaning to ensure we only draw water for brewing
- We understand that success is driven by the talented and passionate individuals. We need to bring on key staff increase production, drive sales, and deliver on our expansion dreams.
Express Your Interest – Townshend Brewery – Nelson NZ (equitise.com)