For David Bowes, inspiration struck when he saw a way to solve a reoccurring problem from his client requests. Bowes’ clients knew how important social media was, but they couldn’t find the link between that and brand building, or how to compare themselves to competitors. Bowes quickly found that existing tools in the market couldn’t solve this problem. And so, Zavy was born.

Zavy is an analytics platform that was developed to help organisations grow better brands in social media. From the start, Zavy had one goal: to be the global leader in social media analytics. It wanted to be the kiwi tech company that took on the world. After launching in 2016, it seemed like Zavy was unstoppable. It had quickly grown a very impressive client list that included some of New Zealand’s biggest companies. It even had active clients in Australia. Zavy brought on board resellers such as The Research Agency, Blinc and Colmar Brunton. With this momentum, global expansion was the logical next step.

But Zavy needed a push. A $250,000 push. It needed this to support its rapid expansion and achieve its global goals. But raising capital is rarely easy for an expanding business in New Zealand. Like many other expansion stage companies, Zavy quickly found itself facing New Zealand’s dreaded funding gap.

Zavy’s board decided to enlist the help of its “crowd” via equity crowdfunding using Crowdsphere, a licensed equity crowdfunding platform.

What’s Equity Crowdfunding?

Equity crowdfunding in New Zealand is when the “crowd” (anyone) invests in businesses in exchange for some form of security (shares).

Equity crowdfunding platforms such as Crowdsphere enable businesses to raise growth capital by giving entrepreneurs a platform to connect with people who may be interested in investing in their business. Equity crowdfunding not only allows entrepreneurs to raise capital, it also helps them create a network of promoters for their idea. Also, what a lot of entrepreneurs do not realise about equity crowdfunding is that the process removes a number of the regulatory requirements of the relevant legislation when it comes to capital raising. Using Crowdsphere, Zavy was able to raise $325,500 from 53 investors in October 2016. These investors gave Zavy the opportunity to take locally developed technology and help it grow into a global success story.

This $325,500 raise meant Zavy could take on additional sales and marketing resources. This pushed Zavy one step closer to achieving its goal of becoming the global leader in social media analytics.

Kiwis helping kiwis – that’s what makes this success story even better. Zavy wanted to take technology owned and developed by kiwis to the world. Crowdsphere, a locally owned equity crowdfunding platform was able to get it there. New Zealand’s funding gap hasn’t gone away, but success stories like this, of kiwis helping kiwis proves the important role investors and alternative investing options play in closing it.