Online butcher Our Cow crowdfunds $2.6m to keep up with customers
Meat subscription start-up Our Cow has launched its second crowdfunding raise in under 12 months as it looks to expand nationally and give farmers direct access to former Voly customers living in the inner city.
The direct-to-consumer meat delivery service began as a Facebook page in 2019 after cattle farmers Bianca Tarrant and Dave McGiveron took to social media to sell grass-fed and organic beef. Unexpected customer demand and enthusiasm from farmers has seen Our Cow generate more than $20 million in annual recurring revenue, raising $2.4 million in May 2014 to fund growth.
The online butcher has now launched its second raising on Birchal, with some 150 farmers supplying produce to over 7000 subscribers around Australia. The valuation of the business, $60 million, is twice what it was in the first crowdfunding round.
“The last 12 months have just been absolutely crazy,” she told this masthead. “The entire business has doubled … Our subscriber numbers, our customer numbers, our monthly and annual recurring revenue – everything in the business has more than doubled.”
Our Cow is seeking a further $2.6 million (Birchal has a $5 million ceiling for raisings within 12 months) and will use the new funds to invest in technology, including its website and a future app, to improve the user experience for farmers and customers and to expand into other forms of protein, particularly seafood.
The meat delivery start-up has a processing facility in Casino NSW, about a one-hour drive from Byron Bay, but is considering setting up a base in Sydney. ”It could be on the cards to be moving closer to customers.“
Our Cow acquired the assets of failed instant grocery delivery service Voly in mid-January, which include Voly’s business name, app and 43,000-strong customer database, which Tarrant is hoping to leverage this year.
“They did a really good job with their company and the brand and what they built, so we would just want to be able to harness that and keep the community there and introduce them to Our Cow and our products and our offerings,” she said.
Voly collapsed in mid-November after burning $13 million in 12 months, leaving 112 employees out of a job. Other similar start-ups, including Quicko and Send, also folded last year.
Most of the 150 farmers who supply to Our Cow are based around NSW and Queensland, but subscribers, who tend to be young families looking for convenience, are spread across Australia. The additional funding will also go towards speeding up delivery times that are currently 2-3 days for metropolitan customers.
“We’ve noticed that people in the cities have lived such a fast lifestyle, and it’s very different to us people out in the bush,” Tarrant said.
Our Cow has expanded from beef to lamb, chicken and pork, and has just launched wild-caught snap-frozen local seafood in partnership with Queensland fishing co-operative Noosa Junction Seafood.
“That was probably the number one thing that our customer asked for, wild-caught seafood,” she said. “We’re offering a small range to start with, with the vision of expanding the range this year.”
The delivery service chief isn’t concerned about upcoming consumer spending crunch: the business is not competing with supermarkets on price, Tarrant says, as their point of difference is high quality and often organic produce, direct from the farmer. 500 grams of beef mince on Our Cow costs $10.99, compared to $7 at Woolworths.
“We certainly haven’t seen a dip in anyone’s cart … especially after COVID, I think people really emphasised on keeping their money in Australia, like shopping local,” she said. “It’s helping out the farmers as well. And they’re happy to pay a couple of bucks extra for that.”
The ultimate vision is to one day become the national online farmers’ market to connect farmers and customers from all over Australia.
“It feels like we really have this purpose now in the agricultural industry to do something different, and to provide the industry a different avenue.”
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Source: Thanks smh.com