Case study: ArchiPro
Connecting a highly fragmented architecture, interiors, and construction industry
Capital raise summary
$2m
Raised through Snowball Effect
16
Investor groups
$500k
Largest single investment
2
Directors placed
Background
In April of 2018, Snowball Effect launched a private offer for online architecture platform, ArchiPro, which resulted in $2,000,000 raised from 16 investor groups.
However, the preparation for this capital raise didn't just start when the offer opened to investors. The work started many months before, where Snowball Effect worked dilligently with ArchiPro from start to finish, including transforming ArchiPro's business plan into fully fledged investment documentation, to sourcing strategic investors and placing directors to facilitate a new stage of growth for the company.
About ArchiPro
Initially created as an architectural and design directory, ArchiPro has quickly evolved into an end to end marketplace for all participants of the architecture, interiors, and construction industry.
ArchiPro is an online platform that hosts and connects industry professionals with their clients, and helps them build their brands; while providing homeowners with an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, research and hire professionals, find products, and manage their projects. ArchiPro showcases over 14,000 products, 4,000 projects, 700 companies and 140,000 pages of content, resulting in over 3,700,000 annual page views (2018).
Launched in 2014, ArchiPro has already achieved rapid growth, reaching a number of impressive milestones, including a 99% paying customer retention rate per month and 69% revenue growth in 2018. Having only penetrated 3% of the addressable market in New Zealand, ArchiPro planned to raise up to $2m to accelerate their mission in connecting a highly fragmented industry.
I have always been a bit of a perfectionist, and when it came to raising capital, I quickly figured out after an initial discussion, that Snowball Effect was the team to get it right. They ran an extremely thorough process, taking the time to help us prepare everything from start to finish, before taking the opportunity to their network of investors.
Milot Zeqiri
CEO and Co-Founder of ArchiPro
ArchiPro’s requirements
ArchiPro were generating strong profitability, however required additional capital to better position themselves to scale from the solid base they’d built. To ramp up growth, ArchiPro planned to invest significant resource into staff and platform development.
Snowball Effect were engaged to work with ArchiPro to help them achieve their growth ambitions by providing a range of services to Archipro as they prepared for their capital raise.
The outcome
The capital raise was a comprehensive success, with Snowball Effect and ArchiPro achieving the goals that were initially set out. Shaun Ryan, founder and Chairman of NZX listed SLI Systems, was placed as the new Chairman of ArchiPro prior to going to market with the capital raise. Shaun had valuable software experience, as well as experience being a board member for early stage companies and implementing appropriate internal and board level policies and processes.
Further to this, ArchiPro also brought Andrew Patterson on board as a Director. As the Founder and Director of Patterson Associates Architects, Andrew has over 30 years of experience in the architecture industry and is one of NZ’s leading architects.
The Investment Summary, Information Memorandum, and several other smaller documents for specific strategic investors were prepared by Snowball Effect and distributed to targeted investors. Snowball Effect also made use of their investor database, identifying the correct strategic investors whose investment interests were aligned with ArchiPro’s business. Snowball Effect’s investors have an opportunity to tailor their investment interests through completing their Investor Profile, which allows Snowball Effect to more accurately curate suitable investment opportunities.
Referrals were made to high quality partners including Matt Dold from Oxygen Advisors who developed ArchiPro’s financial model, and Daniel Wong from Flacks & Wong who were engaged as ArchiPro’s legal counsel.
At financial close, $2m had been raised from 16 investor groups, the largest of which invested $500k. As of a few months after ArchiPro's raise, they now host over 1,000,000 users, 9,000,000 page views and over 200,000 pieces of content and images. ArchiPro continue to grow at an impressive rate, with the correct governance in place and necessary capital to execute on their growth plans.
Snowball Effect: Capital raising experts
Snowball Effect offers a wide range of services around capital raising that have helped companies of various different industries, backgrounds, and sizes. If you would like to know how we could help your company grow, please get in contact with our Head of Growth Capital, Bill O’Boyle.
