Scotland’s largest independent brewery, BrewDog, is close to reaching the £4.25m target of its record-breaking crowdfunding scheme, Equity for Punks, six weeks ahead of schedule, with less than £150k worth of shares still available. After extending its original target of £4m by £250,000 last month to keep up with demand, the brewery has now raised over £4.1million as beer fans clamour to buy equity in the business.
Not only has BrewDog demonstrated that crowdfunding works as a means of financing growth, it is using it to expand the hospitality side of its business – to dramatic, international effect.
Expansion of BrewDog’s bar division
The extra funds raised will further boost the expansion of BrewDog’s bar division both domestically and abroad. The maverick brewery announced last week that it plans to open BrewDog bars in Tokyo and Sao Paulo by March 2014, as well as several new UK sites before next summer.
BrewDog’s biggest success in the past year has been the growth of its bar division, opening 13 bars since 2010 – largely funded by Equity for Punks investment – including its first international location in Stockholm, Sweden
BrewDog growth
BrewDog is the UK’s fastest growing food and drinks brand and has made a total of 44,600 shares available to anyone to buy online, ignoring traditional methods of funding to support its continued rapid growth.
The brewer has achieved an average annual growth of 167 per cent over the past five years and the company is already valued at over three times the value it was given during the last Equity for Punks scheme in 2011.
The company now employs 200 staff, is on track to turnover £19m in 2013 and is forecasted to grow by 100 per cent in 2014. The company’s award-winning beers are stocked nationally in all major supermarkets and BrewDog already exports to 38 international markets.
For more information click here