PledgeMe almost three quarters funded in first 24 hours

07/08/2018

Wellington-based crowdfunding platform PledgeMe Limited launched an equity crowdfunding campaign for themselves yesterday. Their campaign launched publicly at 6pm, and they have had over $366,000 pledged already.

“We’re really excited to be almost three-quarters of our way to our minimum goal of $500,000” says PledgeMe co-founder Anna Guenther, “I think this is a real testament to our crowd appreciating the way we do things differently!”

PledgeMe was launched in 2012 as the first project based crowdfunding platform in New Zealand. In the last six years, they’ve helped 1,200 successful campaigns with over $27 million pledged through the platform. In 2014, PledgeMe was the first equal licenced equity crowdfunding platform in New Zealand after the legislation changed to allow raising investment online without a public prospectus.

“In the last twelve months, we’ve had almost $12million pledged through the platform. That’s significant growth from the previous years, and shows a trend towards larger equity crowdfunding campaigns like Ocho and Waiapu.” says Guenther, “Both of those campaigns raised the $2million legal maximum within hours of going out to their crowds.”

PledgeMe wants to raise up to $900,000, which represents 11.1% of the company. Shares are priced at $164.50 each with a minimum purchase of one share.

“We’ve set the price at one share to make the investment accessible,” says Guenther “if our goal is to make equity crowdfunding equitable, we need to focus not just on the companies and their founders, but also the wider investor community.”

In their second equity crowdfunding campaign, in 2015 they raised $365,820 in three weeks.

“It’s amazing to see we’ve exceeded the amount we raised in three weeks in 2015 in less than 24 hours.” says Guenther “With the support of our new shareholders, we’ll be able to invest into further growth here in New Zealand and in Australia”

Funds raised in this round will be used to launch in Australia, expand in New Zealand, and fund the development of new ways to make crowdfunding more accessible.

PledgeMe has almost 200 shareholders currently. Last financial year, PledgeMe had $767,983 in revenue with a profit of $252,971. Over the last three years, PledgeMe has grown over 90% in compounded annual growth.

The campaign will run until 6 September 2018, or when the maximum goal of $900,000 is met.

ENDS

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