{"id":36982,"date":"2023-10-20T14:47:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/first-equity-crowdfunding-deal-in-australia-for-2016-raises-more-than-675000-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:47:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:47:22","slug":"first-equity-crowdfunding-deal-in-australia-for-2016-raises-more-than-675000-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/first-equity-crowdfunding-deal-in-australia-for-2016-raises-more-than-675000-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"First equity crowdfunding deal in Australia for 2016 raises more than $675,000 – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"crowdfunding\"<\/div>\n

A global student support platform started in Sydney has raised more than $675,000 through VentureCrowd in the first equity crowdfunding deal in Australia for 2016.<\/p>\n

It comes at the start of a year which will see equity crowdfunding reforms scrutinised and a parliamentary inquest return its findings.<\/p>\n

Zookal,<\/a> founded in Sydney and now based in Singapore, has raised well over its $500,000 goal on the crowdfunding platform. The startup provides a platform offering a range of services and products for university students.<\/p>\n

With three days still remaining, it has raised $675,000 from 15 wholesale investors, valuing the company at $US20 million.<\/p>\n

VentureCrowd\u2019s Luke Fay says this demonstrates a strong appetite within Australia for this form of fund raising.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows the interest in these quality deals,\u201d Fay tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the right transaction the appetite is high. People want to see companies with big growth potential and a good potential exit story. If you\u2019ve got those the deals tend to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform on the agenda<\/b><\/p>\n

In Australia equity crowdfunding is currently restricted to \u2018sophisticated\u2019 investors with net assets of $2.5 million or aggregated gross income for each of the last two years of at least $250,000.<\/p>\n

The federal government revealed its legislation to loosen these restrictions<\/a> at the end of last year, placing a cap of $5 million on companies using the avenue and a $10,000 cap on the amount a retail investor can pledge.<\/p>\n

But the reforms were labelled as \u201cabsolute nonsense\u201d and a \u201cdead duck\u201d<\/a> because they restricted equity crowdfunding to public companies.<\/p>\n

Despite having bipartisan support for most of 2015, Labor then withdrew its support for the bill and called for a parliamentary inquest<\/a>, saying the startup community had been dealt a \u201cgreat disservice\u201d by it.<\/p>\n

Fay says that although he hopes the government will further consult with those impacted by the reforms, successful campaigns won\u2019t stop in the meantime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll wait on the proposed government regulations to be passed \u2013 whilst that will hopefully open things up it doesn\u2019t stop quality deals from happening,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that at some stage the legislators actually talk to the practitioners, the people actually doing the trades, and get their opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A global student support platform started in Sydney has raised more than $675,000 through VentureCrowd in the first equity crowdfunding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}