Linked Finance; Curious Wines expands

Michael Kane is a friend of Smallbusinesscan. He and his brother are looking to raise 30K through Linked Finance. They are already at 75%. You should have a look.

Cork wine company Curious Wines run by brothers Mike Kane and Matt Kane, one of the first wine companies in Ireland to use the web and social media to get business, are innovating again. The brothers are expanding their business by opening a wine warehouse and retail space in Naas, just off the M7 as a foothold into the greater South Dublin area. However, rather than relying on the banks to finance the expansion, it was apparent they had the necessary funding right at their finger-tips – through their own customers.

No more cajoling

“We needed an additional €30,000 of financing but instead of jumping through hoops by having to educate, prod and cajole a bank manager, we went to the people who understand and believe in our business: our customers, our friends.” stated MD Michael Kane.

Curious Wines are one of many businesses in Ireland using new forms of financing, based on peer-to-peer lending or crowd-funding. Here they’re using LinkedFinance, where individuals get to bid “micro” loans at rates that suit them. When enough people bid the loan becomes an auction, with the loan fulfilled at the lowest rates bid. Where Curious have struck gold again is in offering the loan to their customers first.

“We’ve never seen such an enthusiastic response to a loan on our platform.” commented Marc Rafferty of LinkedFinance. “Normally we would experience 20-30% loan fulfilment in the first week of a loan being offered. With Curious it was 75%, and at rates we haven’t seen before.”

Rafferty continued: “Curious Wines has embraced Linked Finance as a way to raise finance to expand their Irish business in the ultimate fashion. By engaging with their own customers, they have driven the speed of the fulfilment, and driven down the rate at which people are prepared to invest in them. Not only are they receiving the finance they need to grow, they’re turning their current customers into lenders and advocates for their business and they’ve also publicised their wine business to the thousands of lenders supporting Irish SMEs on LinkedFinance.com. Now that’s what we call a real alternative to the banks!” continued Rafferty.

The loan auction ends on Tuesday 24th June and details can be read here: https://www.linkedfinance.com/business-loans/investment/borrower/loan?id=1564

Would you get €30,000 from your bank in a week?

Matthew Kane, Curious Wines’ Operations Manager who will run the Naas location: “We’re blown away that in just a week we’re at 75% of our €30,000 loan without pushing it that hard. We sent an email to our newsletter list and put up a few tweets and our friends and supporters spread the news via word of mouth. It’s a total endorsement of what we’re doing by our own customers.”

Curious Wines are of the view that new direct to public financing models are a future that SMEs need to consider.

Michael Kane MD: “Despite all the fancy advertising saying banks are lending money, they’re still far too conservative, we would urge many SMEs that are looking for financing to investigate LinkedFinance as an options. These could be the credit unions, the community coop banks of the 21st century”

The post Linked Finance; Curious Wines expands appeared first on Small Business Can.

Business support; Microfinance Ireland

Crowd funding

I was at the Innovation 2.0 conference and at the entrepreneur’s day as part of the world conference on entrepreneurship. Two great conferences. There was a common theme (Drucker has always said that entepreneurship and innovation are two sides of the same coin) and that was crowd funding. In Ireland we have Linked Finance, Fundit, nTrai, iFund, Moneycrowd and Cofunder. I am sure that I forgetting some and please let me know if I have and we will include you.

Micro finance

Another form of finance is Microfinace Ireland. With its spanking new CEO Michael Johnson, an old friend of Smallbusinesscan. They manage the  Microenterprise Loan Fund. It is targeted at start-up or growing microenterprises across all industry sectors. We work with businesses based in the Republic of Ireland, with less than 10 employees and a turnover of less than €2m. Providing unsecured business loans of €2,000 to €25,000 for commercially viable proposals that have been declined bank credit.

They will also consider co-funding bank proposals. Microenterprises that have experienced both formal and informal declines from their bank are eligible to apply for a loan with us. The interest rate on our loans is 8.8% APR fixed and repayments are by monthly direct debit. Loans are generally for 3 years for working capital facilities. Loans up to 5 years may be considered if it involves financing of capital expenditure such as equipment, machinery or vehicles. The business can be trading as a sole trader, a partnership or a limited company. You can apply here

And you are not alone. Adare farm, Kitchen incubators Kerry, Big Adventures Island and Castemine farm are examples of successful applicants

If you need help with your application, let us know, we be happy to help.

 

Using the power of our growing community, we have negotiated a range of discounts and special offers on vital business services you need to run and grow your business.
Visit Our Webstore

The post Business support; Microfinance Ireland appeared first on Small Business Can.