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The platform is targeting up to $2m in new funding, with cornerstone backing from a network of sophisticated investors.

Equity Crowdfunding (CSF) platform Birchal has established itself as the market-leader in Australias fast-growing CSF industry.

Now, its doing what it does best; giving investors simple access to invest in a high-growth company with scale-up ambitions but with a twist.

This time, the latest CSF raise announcement on the platform is for Birchal itself, as the company looks to consolidate its platform in whats now a major new sector in Australian capital markets.

Birchal will look to raise up to $2m in the CSF round, with cornerstone backing from a network of sophisticated investors including serial entrepreneur Dom Pym, who also co-founded the neobank UP.

With Birchal now taking expressions on interest on the platform, Stockhead caught up with Birchal Managing Director Matt Vitale to discuss the rationale for the raise and the companys outlook.

He highlighted that after 3+ years of strong growth, the business is already profitable and generating free cash-flow.

But strategically, the additional cash injection gives Birchal an opportunity to consolidate its business model as a core platform in Australias crowd funding industry.

We hosted 59 successful deals on our platform last year, so we expect that growth trend to continue. And it means we can become a very significant business over the next couple of years, Vitale said.

So the time really is now for us to accelerate into that opportunity.Since the establishment of Australias crowd funding sector in 2018, the industry has grown at around 70% annually, Vitale said.

Its now on its way to matching the UK sector, where crowd funding accounts for around 15% of broader venture capital activity.

Australia is still in its ramp-up stage, but based on the UK experience, it could be a material industry with a market size of around $500m by 2024, Vitale said.

But what we have the opportunity to do now is firmly establish crowd funding as a mainstream asset class. And when we think about what an asset class needs, it really exists on four key pillars.

To consolidate its platform, Birchal is looking to build out its platform to achieve the following four objectives;

For Vitale, the primary capital component is where Birchal has established itself as the leader in the Australian market.

Id argue the primary markets piece is probably the hardest piece of the puzzle to solve things like building an investor audience and pricing equity, Vitale said.

Its really hard and where we have an advantage is that weve been able to systemise it and repeat that success.

But for the industry to grow and be sustainable, we really need to build out an ecosystem of products and services to make crowd funding a viable and credible way for people to invest, build wealth and repeat the process recycling that capital and investing in other opportunities, he said.

So we spend a lot of time thinking about what the industry needs. What weve built is a really great origination machine, and now the market is demanding us to build these additional services.

Its actually a great place to be, and a great opportunity, and were going to deploy these funds to take advantage of it.

More broadly, Vitale said the build-out of Birchals service offering forms a key step in how crowd funding can play a key step in the future of Australias entrepreneurial economy.

I think in the early days, people thought crowd funding was primarily used by B2C companies offering products or services direct to consumers, but our experience is far broader than that, he said.

What its really driving and enabling is the growth of the entrepreneur economy, and a lot of people are really passionate about how that can contribute to Australias future.

He added that crowd funding also gives investors an effective way to allocate capital thats aligned with modern standards around ethical investing.

Weve got 130,000 users on our platform, who for the first time now have a simple and effective way to find startups that theyre interested in investing in, Vitale said.

So without getting too romantic about it, the growth of our platform is a real opportunity to change the economy and change the world from the bottom up.

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Birchal flags the next evolution of Australias crowd-funding market with marquee capital raise announcement - Stockhead