A word with Birchal’s Co-Founder – Matt Vitale

We’re less than 3 months away from our Awards Night. The nominations are pouring in, the judges are getting ready to sift through them, and it won’t be too long before they’ve narrowed in on the crème de la crème of ecosystem champions for 2022.

In anticipation of that, we thought we’d bring you some words from another ace winner from last year – Birchal.

Having bagged the Hammer trophy for the third consecutive year at Pause Awards last year, Birchal has truly cemented themselves in the Australian startup ecosystem as the go-to equity crowdfunding platform. And while this form of capital raise is over 10 years old globally, it’s still relatively new in Australia – but that hasn’t stopped Birchal from hitting (and surpassing) targets. Stories like Kester Black, ZeroCo, and Thrive are testament to that.

Birchal strongly believes in giving everyone the opportunity to invest in brands they love. And to know what fires them up, we had an on-the-go chat with Co-Founder and Managing Director, Matt Vitale, who let us in on their story.

Check out excerpts from our conversation below:

You’ve made the news time and again for some extremely successful raises. But we’re keen to know if you think there was a specific moment in time when you realised that you were building a potentially game-changing business?

Yes definitely. For us, it was hosting ZeroCo’s $5M raise, which was invested in by over 3,000 of their customers alongside some of Australia’s largest professional investors and VCs. More than 2500 people pre-registered for the Birchal campaign during the expressions of interest phase which was phenomenal in itself. Seeing that sort of momentum is when we realised that was legitimate and potentially game-changing.

And what would you say was the one big factor that helped you grow your business?

There are several factors that helped us, but the major one has to be our focus on simplifying the historically complex and expensive process of raising capital. That definitely helped our success.

What would you say is Birchals’ North Star?

Our North Star is driving entrepreneurialism in Australia by making it easy for early stage businesses to raise capital. 

On a more personal level, what does success look like to you?

When investing in early stage businesses is as commonplace as investing in property and ASX-listed stocks, that would be success.

And what gets you excited to work on your business, day in and day out?

The most exciting aspect of doing this on the daily would be meeting and working with inspiring founders. We love to hear what drives them to do what they do, and how we can help them reach their goals.

How has the local/global ecosystem contributed to your growth and scaling? Anyone in particular?

Knowing that forward-thinking founders and investors believe in the potential of what we can do, that right there is a big one. For Birchal, in particular, Dom Pym (Director of Fintech Australia and the man behind Up, Euphemia, and Ferocia) was one of our earliest believers and supporters.

And finally, how do you think winning Pause Awards impacted you and your business?

Winning Pause Awards raised our profile tremendously. It helped augment how we connect with founders, and the sheer number of them we’ve met.

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To learn more about Birchal, you check them out here.