Leading Australian book retailer Booktopia today announces the decision to stop accepting investment on Equity Crowdfunding platform Equitise.
The decision to stop accepting investment on Equity Crowdfunding platform Equitise was made by the Booktopia Board with the business deciding to re-engage and continue discussions with Growth Funds, High Net Worths (HNWs) and Family Offices.
Despite the interest in the Offer Information Statement (OIS) on the Equitise platform, Founder and CEO of Booktopia Tony Nash says the company will now explore other means of raising the capital.
“We have started the process of exploring significant investment from a variety of sources including Venture Capitalists, Home Offices and Wholesale Investors. We have been humbled with the traction the offer received with over 850 keen investors. At this time, however, despite the great support, it’s not as much as we would have liked to continue with this route of capital raising,” he said.
“We’re grateful to our partner Equitise for their unrelenting support and will look to engage in an Equity Crowdfunding campaign again in the future when the timing is more optimal and we’ve been able to scale thanks to larger investment. We still love the idea of our customers being part owners in Booktopia,” says Nash.
“We are in discussions with external Sophisticated Investors interested after taking the opportunity to inspect Booktopia’s 5-year forecasts who were then able to understand the scale of revenue growth and profitability that the company on track to experience,” says Nash.
Nash’s focus for the business is to fast track and execute its planned growth strategies which include further innovation and automation and holding more stock to fill its warehouse which is now currently only at 25% capacity.
Chris Gilbert, the Co-Founder of Equitise agreed with the board’s decision.
‘’Equitise supports Booktopia’s decision to pursue other capital raising options with the intention that we can do another offer like this in the future together,” he said.
“Whilst the Booktopia offer had great traction, ultimately the crowd hasn’t invested enough. The offer was also affected by a lack of awareness from some investors that they could invest in unlisted companies like Booktopia. However awareness and participation in this type of investing continues to grow which is evident in the number of equity crowdfunding offers we have successfully closed. The equity crowdfunds are similar to the OIS offer Booktopia has run.” said Gilbert.
“In terms of Booktopia, it’s a great Australian company and the nation’s largest online book retailer. It’s growth year on year is impressive and we look forward to working with them again soon and offering the crowd the chance to invest in another retail offer,” he said.
Despite media reports that Amazon would affect Booktopia’s ability to scale and grow further founder of Booktopia Tony Nash says its been intriguing that there’s been little to no resistance we got from the investment community about Amazon’s impact on our future.
“Most people realise that their entry into the Australian market has not necessarily been all that it was hyped up to be particularly in regards to books which only makes up 4.48% of its products. I do believe that in time they will be a major player in the Australian market in many segments other than books, however it is going to take longer than people were expecting,” says Nash.
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