A big "thank you" to our shareholders

January 20, 2025

By Alice Shopland, founder of Angel Food

I’m marking Veganuary 2025 by publishing a blog post a day.

Angel Food wouldn’t be here today without our 340-plus shareholders: people who believed in what we were doing and wanted to be part of it bought shares. Most of them came on board during the three rounds of equity crowdfunding we did through PledgeMe, in 2015, 2019 and 2023. Changes to Aotearoa New Zealand’s Financial Markets Act in 2014 meant that accredited organisations, of which PledgeMe was the first, could facilitate companies selling shares to individuals with far less paperwork than would otherwise required. It’s a great system and I’m hugely grateful to the PledgeMe team for their support and progressive approach. The preparation is nothing like that required for a public listing with a stock exchange, but it’s still quite arduous.

One of the challenges was setting a value for the company each time, to establish a price for the shares. We had to compile an extensive Information Memorandum which detailed the background, current situation and future plans for the company, including financials. And then, when it feels like all of the work has been done, the hardest part begins: marketing the heck out of it for the duration of the campaign. The campaigns are usually for about a month, and during that month you need to make your campaign as visible as possible to your crowd and beyond. That means repeating yourself until it feels like you’re nagging people and until you’re sick of hearing it yourself. With each campaign, you set a minimum target, and if you don’t achieve that minimum then you receive none of the pledged funds.

During our first campaign, we were in the lucky position of being a dairy-free brand in an uncrowded market and right at the time when the dairy industry was losing some of its glow because of environmental concerns. And with equity crowdfunding being a new way for companies to raise money, there was a good amount of media interest. The second two campaigns were very hard work indeed, and I was grateful that by then we had assembled a team of staff and a network of advisors so I could make the campaigns my main focus during that time. Charlotte, my main PledgeMe contact during the 2023 campaign, commented recently that she was amazed at how calm I seemed throughout the process – I had to admit that maintaining a serene exterior is my tendency when I’m under stress and paddling feverishly out of sight.

When we first sold shares I had the idea that our shareholders would be a close-knit and involved group with whom I would share the highs and the lows of the business, who would get sneak previews of products we were working on and who would share their opinions with us. That was naïve of me. Firstly, the vast majority of our shareholders simply want us to get on with business and to occasionally update them on how things are going. Secondly, because we have a diverse group of shareholders, most of whom I don’t know personally, we have to treat all shareholder communications as though they were being made public.

Our third equity crowdfunding campaign was focused on enabling our launch into Australia. At the time of writing export to Australia is still a work in progress. We have brought on board a couple of Australian investors and advisors. With their input we have restructured and are operating efficiently with a very lean team, which is great preparation for future expansion.