SOS Hydration, a drink which compares itself to an intravenous drip for combating dehydration, is looking to raise up to $2.3 million (US$1.5m) through crowdfunding.

The company, which is based in the United States but majority owned by New Zealanders, is seeking to raise the money through crowdfunder Snowball Effect.

Year-old crowdfunding platform, Snowball Effect, has appointed one of its founders, Simeon Burnett, to be its first chief executive.

Burnett will leave a role in corporate finance and international strategy with Fonterra next week, to take up the role.

There's been lots of coverage around the benefits for startups of the flourishing equity crowdfunding market. But what about investors? Idealog wonders is there anything in it for them?

Auckland economist Will Taylor likes beer. It seemed a no-brainer, therefore, for him to invest in equity crowdfunding offers from breweries when the chance arose. Renaissance Brewing, the first Kiwi company to raise money via equity crowdfunding, gave him his opening.

Snowball Effect platform head Josh Daniell says while good offers will continue to get traction with investors, platforms will fail pretty quickly if they are not able to consistently provide good-quality deal flow.

“To run a successful equity crowdfunding offer, you need a good investment proposition, you need good-quality offer information and you need a distribution channel to investors. I'd caution any company proposing to make a public offer without confidence in all three of these key elements.”

The regional winners and rising stars of this year's Deloitte Fast 50 have been announced, and Snowball Effect is proud to be one of them!

Gourmet dinner delivery service Woop (World On Our Plate) has closed off the most successful equity crowdfunding by a New Zealand start-up this week, raising its target $800,000 days earlier than planned.

The offer, launched after the Auckland-based start-up was just four weeks old, attracted 100 investors who gained 42% of the company. It launched the offer with a number of private investors putting in $300,000 and raised a further $500,000 from the general public on the same terms and conditions.

Nine of 11 companies that have used Snowball Effect's crowdfunding platform in its first year reached their funding targets, the company says.

Co-founder Josh Daniell said the company had fielded more than 800 applications over the past year from companies wanting to raise funds, and 11 had launched a campaign on its platform.
Mr Daniell said Snowball worked with successful applicants to help them prepare for a campaign, which is an important element for success.
"The best thing that a company can do is prepare very well and test the market before leaping out there," he said, adding that Snowball recommended start-up companies used an independent panel of experts to suggest a valuation.
"It's what we call a minimarket, which is a bunch of people, whose views we respect in terms of valuing early stage companies, so [the companies] can get anonymous feedback and take that onboard before pushing their offer wider."

Snowball Effect says nine of the eleven companies that have used its crowdfunding platform in its first year have successfully reached their funding targets.

Meanwhile, a fast-growing fresh food company has turned a miss into a win after it failed to meet its target in a crowdfunding campaign on Snowball Effect

Kiwi investment platform company Snowball Effect claims to have become one of the first equity crowdfunding platforms in the world to devise its own mini-stock market for investors.

Josh Daniell says he doesn't have any trouble being taken seriously as a millennial running a finance business.

But the 28-year-old, who co-founded crowdfunding platform Snowball Effect, still puts on a nice suit.

New Zealand jewellery company 1791 Diamonds has already exported $7.5 million of design engagement rings to places like Asia, Europe and USA.

However, the Wanaka-born online company has bigger ambitions and wants to delve deeper into the Northern Hemisphere.

It’s using New Zealand based crowdfunding company Snowball Effect to raise $750,000 – in exchange for 14 to 30 percent equity in the company.

Investments over $2500 will receive a piece of jewellery.

The bosses of New Zealand's two largest crowdfounded equity companies, Snowball and PledgeMe, say they are open to co-operating on a secondary market. At the moment, there is no immediate vehicle for people who invested in a crowdfunded equity round to buy and sell shares after the initial issue.

Last week, Snowball co-founder Josh Daniell said his company might launch a secondary market in about two months. It will operate for short bursts during the year.

Josh Daniell, co-founder of Snowball Effect, says the $2 million limit placed on those raising money through equity crowdfunding is a "good place to start" but will probably be revised over time.

The $2 million cap in one year was raised today during a discussion on new platforms for raising capital at the Conferenz financial markets law conference in Auckland. The panel included Mr Daniell, Neil Roberts from peer-to-peer lender Harmoney, and NZX head of funds management Aaron Jenkins, who has been heavily involved in setting up the new NXT market, which launches tomorrow with the compliance listing of G3 Group.

Fifteen young firms have raised a total of $8.7 million through three equity crowdfunding platforms since the low-strings fund-raising mechanism got the green light from regulators last year.

The sum may be small compared to the $55m that well-heeled "angel investors" pumped into high-growth businesses last year and to the $4.7b bigger businesses raised through the NZX stock exchange in 2014.

It looks even tinier when compared with the current value of bank loans to businesses, which stood at $80b in April, according to the Reserve Bank.

But Chapman Tripp corporate lawyer Bradley Kidd says the start is encouraging.

More platforms have been set up than he expected to support equity crowdfunding and there have been some "really good offers", he says. "I'd say it has gone a bit better than I'd of expected."

An equity crowdfunding campaign for Lance Wiggs' Punakaiki Fund has made a strong debut after opening to the public this morning.

The offer, being run on the Snowball Effect platform, had surpassed its $200,000 minimum target and raised $604,215 from 126 investors by 10am.

Punakaiki wants to raise up to $2 million through the offer, which closes on June 30.
The fund invests in growth-stage technology firms and will use the funds to make new investments and top-up existing ones.

Bt the end of this year, Malaysia would have had its first taste of equity crowdfunding as an alternative route for businesses to raise capital. This will supplement the host of available sources of funding, such as private investors, angel investors, venture capital funds and bank borrowings.

#edGY reached out to Josh Daniell — co-founder and head of platform at Snowball Effect — for some insight into how the New Zealand-based equity crowdfunding platform that has been showcasing deals since last year is faring.

The first company to run a successful equity crowdfunding campaign in New Zealand has beaten its prospectus forecasts.

Last August, Blenheim-based Renaissance Brewing raised $700,000 – the maximum it sought and 12.28% of the company – from investors in just a week and a half, using the Snowball Effect platform.

Renaissance Brewing, the first company to carry out an equity crowdfunding campaign in New Zealand, has beaten the full-year financial forecasts it provided to investors ahead of last year's capital raising.

The Blenheim-based craft brewery, which raised $700,000 selling 12.3 per cent of the company through the Snowball Effect platform, has reported an operating profit of $225,000 at a gross margin of 42.3 per cent.

A secondary market for equity crowdfunded companies' investors to sell and buy shares could soon be up and running.

Snowball Effect has just spent six weeks validating its proposed design with the market, running it past companies, investors, brokers, the NZX and investment bankers.

Although Snowball has not yet made a final determination as to whether it will go ahead, the launch date will be driven by demand from companies.

A New Zealand guitar pedal company conceived in a Paekakariki garage is seeking to raise up to $700,000 through a crowdfunding campaign.

Red Witch Analog Ltd was started by Ben Fulton in 2003 producing boutique analogue guitar and bass effects pedals.

The company was now seeking capital to drive global sales through an offer on Snowball Effect, director Geoff Matthews said.

The pedals were used by some of the world's leading musicians, including Sting and Andy Summers of The Police, The Arctic Monkeys, Faith No More and Tool, Matthews said.

As Harmoney and its doubtless future competitors are taking on the banks and finance companies in the lending and retail investment businesses, crowd equity platform Snowball Effect is giving private investors direct access to unlisted equity investments in New Zealand companies.

So far, it’s working. Of the six companies that have completed their offers so far, all have exceeded their funding targets with one (TGF client Invivo Wines) hitting the $2 million regulatory limit.

Lance Wiggs’ investment fund Punakaiki will use Snowball Effect to crowdfund up to $2 million.

Mr Wiggs says the decision to pick Snowball Effect over PledgeMe was a difficult choice, as they are the best crowd funding platforms in the market.

Kiwi food company Mad Group has its sights fixed on taking fresh salads and wraps to the home of hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries.

The owner of healthy fast food franchises Habitual Fix and Mad Mex has signed an agreement with a partner to launch Habitual Fix in the US$26 billion US fast food market.

Mad Group is raising $1.5 million through crowdfunder Snowball Effect to fund its growth.

Mad Group placed eighth on the Deloitte Fast 50 list of New Zealand's fastest growing companies in 2014.

New Zealand's Breathe Easy Therapeutics has made a high-profile addition to its board as it advances plans for medical trials of its cystic fibrosis therapy.

The company, which is in the middle of a Snowball Effect equity crowdfunding campaign, has appointed Gary Pace - a more than 40-year veteran of the technology world - as independent chairman.

The rapid rise of equity crowdfunding will complement NZX's business rather than pose a competitive threat, says chief executive Tim Bennett.

And he says the sharemarket operator could even get in on the action by establishing an exchange for the trading of shares in crowd-funded firms.

The honeymoon for New Zealand's brave new world of equity crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending has begun in rollicking fashion.

Less than a year after the new Financial Markets Conduct (FMC) Act created the framework for licensed operators to host small capital raisings from the public and loans directly from investors to borrowers, the market has outperformed all expectations.

The most noise and activity on the equity side is coming from Snowball Effect, which has hosted five successful capital raisings on its equity crowdfunding platform since it launched in August last year and has two more currently running. Combined, the offers have raised NZ$5.6 million.

The New Zealand government is backing innovation and we in Australia seem to be watching on as our smaller neighbour becomes more agile and starts to get noticed overseas. The recent introduction of crowdfunding is just one example of how the entrepreneurial landscape in New Zealand is changing. With platforms such as Snowball Effect signing licensing agreements with the new regulator, the Financial Markets Authority, Kiwi entrepreneurs and investors are off to a flying financial start.

The company that owns the Habitual Fix and Mad Mex brands is equity crowdfunding to raise $1.5 million worth of expansion funds.

The Mad Group offer opened to the public this afternoon on crowdfunding platform Snowball Effect. The company hopes to raise a minimum of $750,000 with a cap of $1.5 million – a 13% stake – with 38 days left to go.