Australia’s retail investors have apparently been doing the heavy lifting on backing diverse founders over the past year, even as our crowdsourced funding (CSF) market has contracted.
New data from Birchal’s FY25 Funded Report reveals 32% of CSF capital went to teams with at least one woman founder, compared to 15% in venture capital.
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The figures from the report are based on its internal platform data and ASIC-registered CSF offers.
The report also states 5% of funds raised went to women-only teams, more than double the 2% by VCs. Solo founders, who can find it harder to attract institutional backing, accounted for 29% of all successful raises.
Some standout raises still broke through. South Australia’s Prohibition Liquor Co. secured $2.7 million from more than 1,100 investors through OnMarket, helping the state’s funding volume jump 265% year on year.
This stands in stark contrast to Cut Through Venture’s Q2 2025 report, which revealed women-only founding teams secured less than 0.5% of all venture capital raised in the June quarter. This is the lowest level on record.
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Even including mixed-gender teams, almost 90% of that capital went to a single company, Airwallex, leaving just $29 million for all others.
Birchal’s data also shows diverse teams performing strongly within CSF. Mixed-gender founders recorded the highest average deal size, about $640,000, and the largest average cheque per investor, roughly $2,300.
Women-only teams attracted fewer investors but similar average investment amounts.
Birchal CEO Kirstin Hunter said CSF remains “a strategic source of capital for those who aren’t otherwise well served by venture capital or private equity”.
Since the framework was introduced, more than $347 million has been raised across 489 successful offers involving almost 200,000 individual investments.
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Despite the success, crowdsourced funding platforms have been struggling
Still, CSF has been having a tough time in the market. CSF volume fell nearly 50% year on year to $33.1 million, with the number of individual investments dropping from 35,000 to about 15,000.
The average investment amount, however, rose to $2,200, up from a long-term average of $1,800, as fewer participants invested more heavily.
There’s also fewer CSF platforms to choose from than in the past. Equitise entered administration in late 2024, leaving Birchal with close to 70% market share and OnMarket cementing second place.
In the final quarter of FY25, Birchal ran almost every retail campaign in Australia, accounting for 97.5% of total funding volume.
Birchal has also seen some significant changes. Back in September, the company cut 30% of its workforce. This was the second staff reduction for the platform in just over a year. In July 2024, Birchal told SmartCompany it had cut staff and executive salaries as part of a 30% expense reduction.
The platform also recently overhauled its fee model, lifting fixed fees from $4,200 to $7,000 and scaling success fees from 8% for small raises, to 5% for campaigns above $1 million.
