Waiapu Investments Limited receives overwhelming support (and next steps from here)

Waiapu Investments Limited launched their equity crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to invest in Hikurangi Cannabis last week. From their private launch to the local community they raised almost $1.4 million.

But, due to the overwhelming support for the company, the PledgeMe website struggled to meet the high volume of demand on the public launch and suffered a technical fault on Tuesday night.  After some overnight technical work, the second attempt at launching caused another crash of the PledgeMe website.

As an alternative solution, within 45 minutes a form was sent out for potential investors to indicate their pledge amounts to allocate the remaining available shares. Waiapu hit the $2 million legal cap by 7:56pm, and have had almost double their goal pledged through the form. The shares will be allocated on a first come, first served basis to the pledgers that came through the form. We will be contacting both those who will be added as pledgers and those that have been waitlisted by 5pm tomorrow.

The amount of interest in the campaign shows the support that Hikurangi has generated from their local community and further afield.

Waiapu’s goal is to increase the wellbeing of people and the land. Their initiatives aim to nurture the land and water, support the growth of vibrant and connected communities and aim to create an economically and environmentally sustainable future for our region. This is important work, and they are amazed to have such huge backing from the flaxroots locally and nationally.

We apologise for the frustration this process has caused pledgers. It’s amazing to see the groundswell of support for this East Coast start-up and the speed at which they hit their goal of $2 million (within 10 minutes of going to the public).

If you missed out on this campaign, you can register your interest for possible future rounds here.
If you have any queries, please contact PledgeMe on equity@pledgeme.co.nz.