Invest Rural takes seven investors on a five-day roadshow through regional NSW and Queensland
Bathurst's Reckless Brewing raised $513,068 on Birchal's crowdfunding platform after an investor event. Now Invest Rural takes seven funders to Tamworth, Goondiwindi and Toowoomba.
Invest Rural is taking seven funders on a five-day roadshow through Tamworth, Goondiwindi and Toowoomba, Startup Daily reports startupdaily.net
Startup Dailystartupdaily.netOpen source ↗. The trip is backed by Investment NSW, the Queensland government and Westpac. It follows the case of Reckless Brewing, a Bathurst brewery, bar and restaurant that raised $513,068 through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Birchal.
Reckless Brewing met Birchal CEO Kirstin Hunter at an investor event in regional NSW last November. Hunter is now one of the seven funders on the bus.
Why the roadshow exists
Invest Rural was founded by Jo Palmer, Claire Bull and David Lillo-Trynes after years of running regional innovation events. They kept meeting business owners who had built sizeable workforces on bank debt but had never met an investor. Palmer said some were hearing about angel investment, venture capital and the R&D Tax Incentive for the first time.
Bull said she asked several prominent angel investors whether they had considered investing in the regions. One answer was that they had invested in a business in Canberra startupdaily.net
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Last year's Bathurst event sold out, bringing together 50 businesses and seven investors. According to Invest Rural, several businesses subsequently secured R&D Tax Incentive financing, in addition to the Reckless raise.
Participants and schedule
The investors are Steph Kirchhofer from AgriSpace and South West Angels, Britta Marsh from 77 Partners, Saskia Urlass from Tundra Capital, LendForGood cofounder Tom Dawkins, Tim Hynes from Radium Capital and Melanie Portelli from Westpac, along with Hunter. Among the businesses they will meet is the agritech company DataFarming, whose platform serves more than 55,000 farms in 50 countries.
The first stop is Goonoo Goonoo Station in Tamworth on Tuesday, November 10, where founders from the UNE SMART Region Incubator will pitch over dinner. Goondiwindi hosts a workshop at O'Shea's Royal Hotel and a dinner at Border Brewing Co on Thursday. The roadshow ends on Friday with an investor panel over coffee at Toowoomba's Wellcamp Airport startupdaily.net
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Invest Rural plans to take the coach to a different part of rural Australia each year.
