Karma Cola

Karma Drinks produces the world’s only Organic, Fairtrade certified sodas made from real ingredients that give back to growers. With a proven track record of market entry and expansion in the most demanding markets in the world, Karma Drinks is selling in 20 countries, with over $11.4m in sales and 50% growth in the UK in FY2019. Karma Cola raised $3.3m through Snowball Effect in early 2019.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• Following the successful capital raise through Snowball Effect, we are underway with a number of new projects, including product development, UK summer marketing campaigns, a brand refresh, and expanding our team in the UK.
• Our new product developments include a proprietary 300ml glass bottle for the UK & Europe, new 250ml sleek cans, low sugar versions of our core drinks, and the continued ranging of our new Switchel drink across New Zealand.
• Until now, our grocery presence in the UK has been limited. We are currently trialing our cans in 100 Sainsbury’s stores, with the initial results encouraging as sales are in-line with targets.
• Amidst the $3.3m capital raise earlier this year, we were delighted to finish FY2019 ahead of budget. We are pushing strong into the new financial year, adding two new sales positions in the UK, as well as the valuable addition of Emma Loisel to the Board.
• It has been a very busy period for the Foundation in Sierra Leone. The Karma Cola Foundation and the communities have completed construction of 2 new bridges and 2 new community meeting houses. 7 of the villages have established health committees and received seed funding for the social health fund from the Karma Cola Foundation. We are funding 8 teachers and scholarships for 135 girls to attend school, and currently building 3 new classrooms.

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UBCO

UBCO develops, markets and distributes Utility Electric Vehicles (UEV) which have three connected products and services: Portable Power, Accessories and Software. UBCO closed a $2.5m capital raise through Snowball Effect in March 2019.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• UBCO finished the financial year on a strong note, achieving $3.02m in revenue, 13% above forecasts. The US market continues its solid growth as well, delivering $747k USD in revenue in the first 6 months of the year.
• New Zealand based venture capital fund, Global From Day One (GD1) Fund Two, announced their investment of $2m USD to close off the UBCO Series A and an additional $2m USD of secondary share purchases off existing legacy shareholders, taking the total invested in its Series A to $5.7m NZD.
• The general terms of acquisition of UBCO US by UBCO Ltd was approved by shareholders, which will drive growth in the US market and create additional margin.
• The UBCO team continues to grow as we have recruited key staff to advance in Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, R&D and Supply Chain.
• UBCO is launching the FRX1, a Free Ride Trail Bike at AIM on the 26th of September. The full story is availble here.
• We are on track to deliver the 5th generation of the 2x2 with two new variants, and release of the first fully Portable Power Pack at UBCON in November.
• The rest of the 2019 calendar year is shaping up to be very busy for us, with a full production pipeline through to the start of 2020.

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SuiteFiles

SuiteFiles is a SaaS business offering SMEs a specialist cloud-based document management system leveraging Microsoft Office 365 and Azure. SuiteFiles provides an easy to use system for migrating and managing important client files in the cloud with seamless integration to both Microsoft Outlook and File Explorer. SuiteFiles raised $1m through Snowball Effect in November of 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• After a strong finish to the financial year, we closed out the June quarter with the same momentum. We are focused on ramping up sales and the expansion outside of the accounting space into new markets.
• The quarter ended well with our revenue targets being exceeded by a small amount, marking the best revenue month in SuiteFiles’ history.
• There are now over 90 million files in SuiteFiles, over 415 million files in SuiteBackups, and the team have migrated over 37 million files.
• Our sales pipeline has continued to build in strength, with over 1,500 active leads being pursued, with a focus on trials and conversion.
• Following a recent restructure of the business, we have lifted our development capability and are looking to hire a senior developer to push hard on new product feature development. We also revisited our sales strategy in Australia, and have activated a plan to hire a channel sales manager to grow the Australian market even faster.

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LINK

LINK is Australasia’s largest business brokerage and has grown rapidly to become one of the largest dedicated business brokerages in the world. LINK raised $3.15m in August of 2017, and a further $3.45m in September of 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• The last 18 months has been a period of enormous change within LINK. Multiple major projects have been completed and milestones reached, including the successful acquisition of the largest and most established business brokerage in Australia, Klemms.
• LINK was accepted as a NZTE Focus 700 customer meaning it is one of the top 700 NZ exporting companies. We share this mantle with some of the largest NZ companies such as Fonterra and Zespri.
• We have grown our international presence significantly, now with over 500 brokers worldwide in 10 offices across the US, 18 in Australia and New Zealand, and 2 in the Philippines.

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Zeffer

Zeffer is the largest independent, dedicated cider producer in New Zealand. The company raised $1.2m on Snowball Effect in June 2017 and closed another $2.4m round on Snowball Effect in June 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• We have won ranging into Dan Murphy’s Australia (owned by Woolworths), who have 226 locations across Australia. This presents a big opportunity to work closely with Australia’s largest cider retailer in the $400m+ Australian Cider market.
• Our domestic sales continue to grow with revenue through the grocery channel increasing 81% on the same quarter last year.
• Sales to China performed well as we head into their summer season, with exports doubling on the same quarter last year.
• Our production team has been busy preparing for the busy season with just under 200,000L of cider produced over the quarter. Our tanks are full and prepared for the peak domestic cider season ahead.
• We continue to develop our product offering, including a replacement of one of our core range with a new release at the start of spring and an upcoming seasonal release, as well as an upcoming collaboration with one of China’s leading craft breweries.

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Designer Wardrobe

Designer Wardrobe was founded in 2014 by Donielle Brooke as a New Zealand based fashion marketplace and successfully raised $1.7 million through Snowball Effect in May 2017, and a further $912k in June 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• We opened the new financial year with record revenue for the quarter, exceeding our forecasts by 5% and up 92% against the same period last year. Our Gross Profit was also ahead of our Business Plan by 11%.
• The Direct Rental line of business continues to grow, with inventory now exceeding 1,300 designer label dresses. We are in preparation for the busier seasons as we move into Spring, having invested additional operational expense to prepare for more effective management of the Direct Rental Volumes.
• Our Marketplace continues to produce strong results with revenue up 79% against the same period last year and new records set for listings created and sold.
• Our total registered users on the platform has now reached 169,000 users.

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Reefton Distilling Co.

Founded in 2017, Reefton Distilling Co. are a leading producer of premium spirits in Oceania, using the best quality locally sourced ingredients, many foraged locally the morning they distill. Reefton Distilling Co. raised $1.4m via the Snowball Effect platform in February 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• We have experienced strong trading in the first 5 months of production to the end of the financial year.
• The turnover achieved at the end of the financial year was slightly ahead of the turnover targets we established for the first 6 months of production and we hit an incredible early milestone of breaking even.
• We achieved a gross margin was 55%, with scope to increase as we seek efficiencies, renegotiate agreements and achieve economies of scale.
• Over the 2020 financial year, we will be investing into our whisky production, international growth opportunities and establishing new, larger production premises to meet forecasts.

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Squirrel

Squirrel Group is made up of Squirrel Mortgages, Squirrel Money, and TenanSee. It is this unique combination of (proprietary) technology working alongside a strong brand and a growing market share of mortgage brokering that puts Squirrel in the right place at the right time to lead market disruption. Squirrel Group raised $3.4m through Snowball Effect in April 2016.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• Mortgage settlement volumes for the June quarter were up 21% on the same period last year. The majority of the year on year increase can be attributed to our new commercial lending advisers, a new capability that we invested in during the 2019 financial year to reduce reliance on residential lending.
• Our Mortgages business continues to grow its digital presence outside of Auckland and we are starting to see an increase in settlement volumes across the rest of the country. Our total revenue for the Mortgages business for the quarter was up 22% on the same period last year.
• Squirrel received trail commission payments on loans worth close to $1.1 billion in June (an increase of $43m since March), with a further $240 million worth of loans scheduled to start paying trail commission during the next 12 months.
• We achieved our first quarterly profit for the peer-to-peer lending business, with loans originating from the platform growing a further 13% in the latest quarter, reaching $36.4 million.
• Our net profit for the quarter was up 178% on the same quarter last year, coming off the back of a 22% increase in total revenue for the same period.
• Looking forward into the remainder of the 2020 financial year, our expectation is for the businesses underlying profitability and cash flow to continue its improving trajectory.

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Invivo & Co

Invivo & Co isn’t just a winery; it’s a startup, taking on the world one mouthful at a time. Invivo & Co currently sells in New Zealand and 17 offshore markets. Invivo was the first New Zealand company to raise $2m of equity and has now received more than $4 million from over 687 investors through Snowball Effect and private equity.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• We have had another incredible year at Invivo with many highlights to celebrate, not only financial achievements. We performed well ahead of our projections, finishing $260k above forecasted revenue. Our other key wins were securing $2.4m in funding through Snowball Effect, announcing our new wine collaboration with Sarah Jessica Parker and gin collaboration with Graham Norton, and picking up multiple gold medals and trophies in Awards around the world.
• We have carried the momentum into the new financial year as well, selling 897,000 bottles as at the end of July YTD, versus 634,000 on the same period last year.
• Our international presence continues to grow, with export sales now accounting for 83% of our business.
• We have an incredibly busy second half of 2019, with the roll out of the Sarah Jessica Parker wine and the international rollout of the Graham Norton Gin range.

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Punakaiki

Punakaiki Fund is one of the most active venture capital investors in New Zealand, with investments in 19 high-growth companies. Punakaiki Fund has raised over $3.2m through Snowball Effect, over three separate offers in 2015, 2016 and 2018.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• Over the last quarter, we made further investments into existing portfolio companies, including Conqa, Devoli and NZAW. The total asset value of the fund now stands at $48m.
• Our portfolio companies have now exceeded $120m in revenue for the last 12 months as at the end of the June quarter, with a host of companies delivering their highest quarterly revenues ever.
• Our companies continue to hit great milestones, including Vend hiring 71 new employees, Amazon purchasing a subscription to a Mindfull product and Uber providing strong feedback from the initial use of Weirdly’s platform.
• A total of 404 people (excluding Vend and Family Zone) are employed in Punakaiki’s portfolio companies, an increase of 6 from the previous quarter.

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Snowball Effect

Snowball Effect is an online investment marketplace. Our mission is to simplify investment into high growth Kiwi companies.

Highlights for the quarter include:

• $6.42 million was raised during the quarter, including portions of a $2.48m raise for UBCO, $3.2m raise for Karma Cola, $1.40m raise for CHAPTER2, and $1.5m raise for Ossis. A total of $54m million has been raised as at the end of June 2019.
• Average investment this quarter was $14k from around 278 investors, above the all time average of $8.3k.
• The wholesale investor database has grown to over 1,875 members. 794 members have completed their Investor Profile and 308 have indicated an interest in becoming a director or advisor to growth companies.
• We have released three case studies on different types of capital raises completed for Reefton Distilling, Archipro and LINK. You can read about these case studies in our Case Study Section.
• We launched our online share registry service to all New Zealand companies that want to more efficiently manage their company holding information: Share Registry Services
• Snowball Effect is now developing some exciting new software tools to help SMEs. To help with the development of these new software solutions, we are on the hunt for a Senior Developer. Visit our careers page for further details.