Aiming to rid the world of plastic bottles, company crowdfunds $500k in two hours

Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Founder of Ethique, Brianne West, says the raised capital will be used to expand the business overseas.

A Christchurch-based social enterprise wanting to rid the world of plastic, crowd funded half a million within two hours of its Pledge Me campaign going live.

Ethique, a hair and beauty products company, was looking to raise $1 million through crowdfunding and private investors to expand its business overseas.

Ethique says with its compostable cardboard packaging, it has avoided using 180,000 bottles.

Founder Brianne West said the campaign had nearly 1300 pledges, many of whom pre-registered 21 hours before the campaign went live.

Once it was live, Ethique raised the capital within two hours.

West is also a biochemist and came up with the idea for her products when her shampoo spilled in the shower.

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West said although the plan was to raise the other half through private investment, the success of the campaign showed Ethique could have raised $1m had it run for the full month.

The campaign was launched at Social Enterprise World Forum, an international event hosted this year in Christchurch, where 1500 social enterprises and supporters gathered to discuss the future of enterprise.

West said the idea for her business came to her in the shower while in her second year at university.

She decided to formulate a solid shampoo that would lather with the water in the shower.

New Zealanders threw out a combined 50 million shampoo and conditioner bottles every year. Each takes more than 500 years to degrade in a landfill, and even those that are sent to be recycled might not end up being reused, she said.

West has also developed another 31 solid beauty bars including cleansers, scrubs, moisturisers, household cleaners and even a self-tanning bar.

'Our mission is to rid the world of plastic bottles, and we need all the support we can get to scale to make that happen,' West said.

The business grew over 330 per cent last year and its next goal was to hit revenue of at least $2m this year.

This was Ethique's second crowdfunding campaign - the first time it raised $200,000 in 10 days.

Pledge Me founder Anna Guenther said the defending champion for raising the most in the shortest period of time was ParrotDog. The Kiwi beer company raised a whopping $2m in two days.

Guenther said the average amount pledged to campaigns over four weeks was $300,000.

Ethique has distributors in the United States and Australia and hope to expand these markets with its new funding.

West said Asia was another region Ethique has been researching as the next potential market.