Alcoholic RTD brand, Barry, has completed a crowd-sourced funding campaign of almost $2,765,000 through OnMarket, supported by over 1880 investors. The raise broke OnMarket’s record twice for single-day sign-ups during the expression of interest (EOI) phase.
OnMarket managing director, Tim Eisenhauer, said: “The level of engagement has been exceptionally strong, with Barry recording the largest single-day number of sign-ups we’ve seen for an expression of interest campaign on the OnMarket platform to date”.
Launched in 2023 by AFL players Bailey Smith, Charlie Curnow, and Nick and Josh Daicos, Barry’s spirit-based seltzers are now stocked at more than 995 Liquorland stores, and will soon range across Dan Murphy’s and BWS.
The company’s board is driven by industry heavyweights including former Carlton & United Breweries CEO, Peter Filipovic, and Paramount Liquor director, Leigh Rowe. Barry also appointed Chris Pang as CEO in December to drive the next phase, bringing experience from AB InBev, Asahi Beverages and AllPour.
Pang said the response has been incredibly promising and shows that the Barry community is keen to keep the brand in the hands of fans.
“The groundswell of support has been phenomenal and it’s clear that people can recognise the potential of the business – hitting $3.68 million in revenue last financial year and achieving profitability and massive consumer demand for our product and brand,” he said.
“We have the growth profile that traditional private equity looks for, but we deliberately chose crowd-sourced funding. Our community has built Barry from day one and it's important to us that they get to share its future.
“The business is in a prime position to provide opportunity to genuine investors as well as people who have made an authentic connection with the brand from when we first started – they will be issued with ordinary shares and be legitimate shareholders.”
The funding will be used to further expand distribution and invest in commercial partners.
