Investments

[aknechel]

Hi All, I am planning to open a small 3 bbl brewery in Bucks County PA and am at the point to seek financing. Can anyone share with me if they sought investors and how the offer was structured?

Thank you
Andrew Knechel
Bucks County Brewery

[ArmstrongBrew]

Investments

At the 3BBL mark, I imagine you are looking to run as a nano until the demand picks up and you can expand. Regardless of what others may say, I believe the nano route to be a viable option given certain expectations. The major expectation being financing...or rather self-financing (the other being no labor costs/salaries).

We are running the same route, but everything is being self-financed. We have 3 owners and each has taken an equal share of the investment. We all understand that the money put into the pot stays in the pot and reinvested back into the brewery. IF the venture really takes off, then we can start pulling our investments back out.

If you run this scale and you have all these bills (rent, insurance, utilities, permits, taxes, etc) and you throw repayment of investment in there, the nano route is very difficult since beer is a volume business that generate pennies on the ounce.

Just my opinion.

Nick

[South County]

Hi All, I am planning to open a small 3 bbl brewery in Bucks County PA and am at the point to seek financing. Can anyone share with me if they sought investors and how the offer was structured?

Thank you
Andrew Knechel
Bucks County Brewery

At 3bbls your gonna have to self finance. Best place to start is friends, family and fools, it would be silly to seek traditional "investors" at that level. Next would be second mortgages and banks, which is still a dead front unless your personally flush, which negates the need for funding. Bottom line is that you wont see VC money unless you have much grander start-up plans, and even then its hard.

[ParishBrewingCo]

There is no such thing as financing a nano-brewery. There is no return on a production level that small, so there cant be any financing - or at least financing from traditional lenders or sources of equity. Anyone proving capital to a nano should not expect any return on their investment, so traditional avenues for financing what is essentially a pilot brewery is not likely.

Save your own money for a while to cover the startup cost of your nano. Self-financing is the only way in my opinioin.

[aknechel]

Thanks all for the honest replies, will take them all to heart!!