Invest Rural puts investors on a bus after Bathurst brewer raises $513,000

When Reckless Brewing met Birchal CEO Kirstin Hunter at an investor event in regional NSW last November, the brewer found a way to fund its business.

The Bathurst brewery, bar and restaurant went on to raise $513,068 through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Birchal.

This week, Hunter is getting on a bus to see what else is brewing in the bush.

She’s one of seven funders joining Invest Rural for a five-day roadshow through Tamworth, Goondiwindi and Toowoomba. Backed by Investment NSW, the Queensland government and Westpac, the trip gives rural business owners a chance to meet people who can fund them beyond their local bank.

Jo Palmer, Claire Bull and David Lillo-Trynes founded Invest Rural after years of running regional innovation events. They kept meeting business owners who had built sizeable workforces on bank debt, yet had never met an investor. Palmer said some were hearing about angel investment, venture capital and the R&D Tax Incentive for the first time.

“That is not a shortage of ambition or of good businesses. It is a shortage of access,” she said.

“So we decided to bring the investors to them, on their own turf and in plain English.”

Bull found the city end of the equation just as revealing.

“I asked a few prominent angel investors whether they had considered investing in the regions, and the answer was, ‘Oh, we’ve invested in a business in Canberra’,” she said.

 “That told us how many opportunities were being missed.”

Last year’s Bathurst event sold out, bringing 50 businesses and seven investors together. Alongside the Reckless raise, several businesses subsequently secured R&D Tax Incentive financing, according to Invest Rural.

“Regional economic development has spent decades on roads, broadband and grants,” Lillo-Trynes said.

“Capital is the missing piece, and we’re not waiting for it to find its own way to the bush.”

Joining Hunter are Steph Kirchhofer from AgriSpace and South West Angels, venture investors Britta Marsh from 77 Partners and Saskia Urlass from Tundra Capital, LendForGood cofounder Tom Dawkins, Radium Capital’s Tim Hynes and Westpac’s Melanie Portelli.

Among the businesses they’ll meet is agritech DataFarming, whose platform serves more than 55,000 farms in 50 countries.

The first stop is Goonoo Goonoo Station in Tamworth on Tuesday, November 10, where founders from the UNE SMART Region Incubator will pitch over dinner.

Goondiwindi hosts a workshop at O’Shea’s Royal Hotel and dinner at Border Brewing Co on Thursday, before the roadshow wraps up on Friday with an investor panel over coffee at Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport.

Invest Rural plans to take the coach to a different part of rural Australia each year.

Details at investrural.com.au