Birchal makes new appointments to leadership team
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The news: Equity crowdfunding platform Birchal has appointed Crowdcube founder Darren Westlake as strategic adviser and former Investible chief executive Rod Bristow as non-executive director to strengthen its leadership team.
The context: The appointments come as Birchal seeks to accelerate growth in Australia's equity crowdfunding industry. Westlake brings experience from building Crowdcube into a major UK platform that funded companies including Brewdog, Revolut and Monzo.
Bristow joins with over 30 years of experience in venture capital and financial services, having scaled Investible into one of Asia-Pacific's most active early-stage investment firms.
Birchal has raised $218 million through more than 300 successful offers, connecting with over 79,000 active investors. The Australian equity crowdfunding market has potential to grow tenfold based on per capita trends from the UK market, which raised nearly £1 billion ($1.92 billion) in 2021 and represents approximately 15% of its venture capital ecosystem annually.
What they said: "The UK has shown how transformative equity crowdfunding can be, and I believe Australia is on the cusp of its own boom," Westlake said.
"Birchal has already laid the foundations as the market leader, and I'm excited to help the team take it to the next level, leveraging lessons from the UK to accelerate the growth of this industry in Australia."
The source: Birchal press release
