Crowdfunding Campaign Analysis: The West Wind Gin on Equitise Platform

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of The West Wind Gin's equity crowdfunding campaign on the Equitise platform. It evaluates the company's brand, fundraising strategy, and use of funds, comparing it with other crowdfunding campaigns like HashChing, Primo Wind, and Pixilated. The analysis assesses the strengths and weaknesses of West Wind Gin's campaign, considering factors such as investor interest, market potential, and financial projections. Ultimately, the report offers recommendations to a small investment fund regarding their approach to equity crowdfunding campaigns, highlighting the importance of due diligence, risk assessment, and understanding the specific dynamics of each investment opportunity, with a conclusion that West Wind Gin is more suitable for investment due to its predictable sales and lower risk compared to companies like Primo Wind.

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The West Wind Gin
Name
Institution

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Crowd funding analysis: The West Wind Gin
Crowd funding is a way of reaching many people to raise investment funds and usually takes
place online, where people raise small amounts of money. Crowd funding is very important
when the company (issuer) is looking to sell many shares to the public because it is time-saving
and cheaper. This innovative investment procedure is easier and time-saving as every company is
looking on how to minimize cost and maximize profit within a very short period (Song, 2018).
Investors, on the other hand, are looking forward to investing in a high return company with
lower risk although the risk-takers may decide otherwise. Therefore, the investment platforms
like micro ventures and Equitise are creating a path through which an investor can meet the
issuer. The platforms are available worldwide and every individual thinking to buy assets can
just do it online (Manchanda, 2014).
Nevertheless, the are many companies that are campaigning on the internet by use of the above
platforms and an investor can reach them by just clicking. Such companies are west wind jin and
Hash Ching with their campaign on Equitise, and Primo Wind and Pixilate having their
campaign on the micro venture platform. The investing companies and their campaigns vary in
their operation and presentations
The West Wind Gin
The west winds offer opened officially on the Equitise platform on first may 2018 but opened to
the public on 13th may 2018 and it is expected to close on 17th July 2018 at 5 pm. It deals mainly
with its unique beer products in Australia. In this company, shares are being sold on this platform
at a price of 0.25 united states dollars or 0.27 Newzealand dollars.

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Brand West Winds Gin has launched an equity crowd funding campaign to raise $3.5 million to
accelerate its growth, and while this form of fundraising is new to the Australian market, it has
been on the distiller’s radar for years (River, et al., 2018). "The company has been getting
queries from people all the time, asking, ‘how do we invest?’". This is a clear way of gathering
the data concerning the customer perception about the product. "The appeal of [equity crowd
funding] is that it is a great way to broaden the base of people on the journey with us." (White, et
al., 2018)
The entrepreneur started in the year 2016 when his "fascination with making things" led the
engineer to investigate how to build a gin distillery, including traveling to the US to learn how to
make spirits. West Winds has been largely bootstrapped since launching in 2010, over the past
eight years, the company raised more than two million dollars from friends, families, and well-
wishers.
However, with fans of the gin brand regularly asking how they could buy a piece, (White, et al.,
2018) it is important to be considering an equity crowdfunding tilt for a longer period before
making any decision, and before all, the company had to meet the co-founder of Equitise Chris
Gilbert in 2015 the west wind gin had been in discussion for a quite long period trying to
understand the Equitise mode of operation and its cultures.
The West Winds Gin offer was open to a select few investors last week and went live to the
public on the Equitise platform this week. According to the funding page, the business has so far
raised $473,000 of a minimum required $500,000, with 64 days left to invest in the company.
Punters can buy a piece of the business for a minimum investment of $500.

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The company will use the funds “primarily for working capital and for inventory as we grow,”
(White, et al.,2018). In its first year, West Winds Gin sold around 5000 bottles of gin. The
companies target is to sell 10000 bottles in 2018 which is double in 2017. These are sold
throughout Australia as well as in Canada, the UK, France, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates,
Japan, China, and Malaysia.
” Capital raised in this crowdfunding campaign will go towards bridging the gap between the
company's payment of excise tax and its payment for products, as well as increased marketing
exposure, given West Winds has been concentrating much on the US market. The focus at this
point is South East Asia and the UK and Europe, but we're looking closely at North America,
looking very closely at the US,” (White, et al., 2018).
Investing in Hash Ching company on Equitise
Mortgage marketplace startup HashChing, a fintech startup disrupting the monopoly of the big
banks, has also launched an equity crowdfunding campaign. It’s currently live on the Equitise
platform, which has one of the seven crowdfunding licenses issued for the first time this year.
HashChing, which is seeking between $1 million and $5 million, has so far raised $286,500, at a
minimum $250 investment, with another eight days to go.
A slight difference in interest rates can cost homeowner thousands of dollar each year, (Sodhi,
2018). This is why one out of two Australians like to deal with a mortgage broker instead of
going directly to the bank.HashChing, which launched in August 2015, provides a channel for
potential borrowers to access home loan deals that have been pre-negotiated by brokers. The
current pool now represents 60 banks and non-bank lenders.

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This means interest rates offered through the app are often far lower than the big four banks’
standard offerings, which are currently around 4.5%.In 2017, Hashching wrote $540 million
worth of home loans. Equitise was the platform behind Australia's first equity crowdfunding for
digital bank startup Xinja which raised $2.4 million (Pelzal et.al., 2018).
Co-founder Chris Gilbert (2018), currently only 1% to 2% of startups seems to have a go
through to become a crowdfunding project.“As our investor audience grows we will probably
widen that and include some earlier stage businesses,” he told Business Insider.
“It has a specific mandate at the moment for businesses that have traction, they have revenues,
and technology platform launched … it is really looking for tangible growth businesses.”Seven
companies were issued Australian Financial Services authorizations to provide crowd-sourced
funding. (Zhang, 2018) Equity crowdfunding enables Australian retail investors to invest as little
as $50 or as much as $10,000 in a business. New legislation enabled by the Crowd-sourced
Funding Act 2017, allows companies with less than $25 million in gross assets to raise up to $5
million a year. Retail investors are able to invest up to $10,000 per company a year
Investing in pixilated on a micro ventures platform
Pixilated is a company that is an open-air photo booth rental including the set-up and delivery of
your booth, on-site instant printing, high-resolution digital photos, a friendly Pixilated attendant,
props, and more! as displayed on its website. (Manchanda. et al., 2015) This is a company that
was founded in 2012 and built in Baltimore Maryland. Its product being a photo booth and
marketing strategies being built, it still becomes riskier than west wind gins because its future
returns are not certain. It is clear that the data presented by primo wind shows a positive progress
as shown below

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Jan Feb March april may jun july aug sep october Nov
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
The primo wind revenue
Series 1 Column1 Column2
According to the figure above, it is riskier to invest in this company because, the income
generation may become zero and therefore, no credible returns at all. Comparing the two, the
primo wind and west wind gin company, it shows, west wind has good returns which cannot
easily become zero.
Conclusion
From the deep analysis of all the companies discussed above, you can see that the west wind gin
is more suitable for investment. It mainly deals with the gin which its sales are predictable and
less risky. This company sells its shares at an affordable price that many people can afford
investing here (Zhang, 2018). There is no season that their graph would touch zero like other
companies such as Primo wind as shown in the graph above. This means that the investor is

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assured of good returns. Moreso, on their website, the investor can judge whether to invest or
not, because, they have all the data on their front page.
People lack education and trust about the internet money or have financial deals on the
internet. (Ordanini, 2011) It is not easy to address this issuer as it is hard to have a teacher in
every location of the world to educate the investors. In countries like Africa, many investors do
not have any confidence or knowledge to use this sites. (Khavul, 2018)I see it important for the
owners of equitise to advertise in in social media, and carry out interviews using online
questionnaires to help them market their company, otherwise, it can take very long to reach the
required target of the funds. More so, the company should think of decentralizing its organization
to reach many people.

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