Brewdog raises £23m in latest crowdfunding round, falling short of its upper £50m target
Brewdog will finish its fifth fundraiser having smashed its initial target, but fallen short of the company’s £50m upper limit.
The crowdfunding round will close on 15 October having so far raised £23m, breaking the company’s previous record £19m fundraiser in 2016.
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The brewery had hoped to raise between £10m and £50m.
Initially set to run for three months, Brewdog extended its fundraiser in January after only raising £11.3m, the lower end of the target range.
The £10m target will be invested to extend its brewery in Ellon, Scotland, and to develop a sour beer facility.
The remaining £13m will be split between a £5m brewery in Brisbane, Australia and a £2m TV network “dedicated to craft in all walks of life”, which Brewdog launched last month.
It had initially hoped to invest £3m in 15 new bars in the UK in 2018.
A company spokesperson told City PM that the company has opened nine new pubs this year, including six in the UK. Part of the money left over will be used towards a £10m brewery in Asia which is “still in the plans”, the spokesperson said.
Co-founder James Watt said: “It’s insane to see over 90,000 people buy a piece of our business. This continued support and demand for Equity for Punks is not only humbling, but demonstrates the passion people share for our mission and belief in awesome beer.
“The success we’ve seen over the past decade has only been made possible by our incredibly passionate, engaged, evangelical community of Equity Punks. They are the beating heart of everything we do and together we are changing the world of beer for the better.”
The company said in January it wanted to become the biggest crowdfunded business of all time.
It has placed crowdfunding at the heart of its plan, valuing a model “driven by purpose, not profit”.
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Watt said in January: “Our Trojan dog stood overlooking London’s financial district as a stark reminder of the undeniable significance of crowdfunding and our invasion of the status quo. It marked a new dawn and quenched peoples’ thirst for change.”
Brewdog sold a 22 per cent stake to private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners in April 2017.