Austpac

Alternative Business Finance Group

Raise capital and fund growth, without a bank.

Brisbane, Australia

Your gateway to the Initial Private Offer platform.

Equity capital is contributed in return for a share of ownership. It's not repayable, demands no provision of security (other than the issued shares) and bears no interest.

As an adviser to the Initial Private Offer platform, we help start-ups, early-stage and established businesses raise equity capital by combining private investment offers with intelligent share capital structuring. We help turn bold ideas into thriving businesses and accelerate growth in Australia's innovation economy.

Explore your options ↓

Two ways to raise

Raise equity capital
Explore the potential of your business, or business idea, to raise capital, without a bank. Equity capital is contributed in return for a share of ownership. It's not repayable, demands no provision of security (other than the issued shares) and bears no interest.
Find out today, it's free!
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Raise debt funding
SME Bonds — funding for more established businesses
An issue of SME Bonds can be a way for established businesses to obtain debt finance. Issuing a series of SME Bonds provides a way to fund a company without watering down its existing shareholders. Bond investors receive regular interest payments until the end of the bond term and receive their initial investment back at the maturity date.
Convertible SME Bonds — debt capital that converts to equity
Convertible Bonds act as a debt instrument with an interest rate, prior to conversion. Get your early supporters onboard with the discretion to convert the debt to equity as the business grows. The key advantage: when bonds convert to shares, the company's debt vanishes — instead of paying out cash at maturity, the issuer pays investors with shares in the company.
Learn about SME Bonds →

The problem

Most Australian SMEs don't know they can legally raise growth capital without a bank or prospectus.

Section 708 of the Corporations Act provides a long-standing legal pathway for private companies to raise up to $2 million, or more, from up to 20 investors — without a prospectus, without ASIC disclosure, and without the cost of a public raise. The problem has always been that this pathway has had no dedicated market infrastructure to support it. Until now.

As advisers to the Headwaters platform, we bring the mechanics of a stock exchange to the private market — creating the two-sided private capital ecosystem that's always been missing: a primary issue platform for new capital, and a secondary sale platform, the Private Trading Exchange, for existing shareholders.

Why work with Austpac

Tony Puls has spent over 40 years in Australian private capital markets. He founded ASSOB — cited by the World Bank as the world's most successful equity crowdfunding platform — co-drafted ASIC's Class Order on Section 708, and has advised the US SEC and FINRA on the JOBS Act.

This isn't a platform running on autopilot. You're working directly with the person who helped build the regulatory framework this pathway operates under.

How it works

1. Talk it through
A no-obligation conversation about whether your business fits an equity raise, a debt raise, or neither.
2. Structure the offer
Share structure, valuation, offer documentation, and compliance under the Section 708 exemption.
3. You raise it
Under the small-scale offer exemption, your company finds its own investors. Austpac guides the process; you and your network drive it.

Background of Founder Tony Puls

Founding Chairman, ASSOB
Australian Small Scale Offerings Board — one of the world's first equity crowdfunding platforms. Oversaw more than $150 million raised for over 300 Australian start-ups and early-stage businesses. Cited by the World Bank as the world's most successful equity crowdfunding platform.
Helping SMEs access alternative funding
Developed the market infrastructure underpinning Section 708 of the Corporations Act 2001 — the legislation that governs small-scale private equity capital raising in Australia today.
SEC & FINRA, Washington DC — 2013
Invited by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA to Washington to help develop crowdfunding regulations as part of President Obama's JOBS Act — one of a small number of international practitioners consulted.
Coined 'Initial Private Offer'
The term now used by SMEs across Australia, the USA and Europe to describe a compliant private equity raise under small-scale offering exemptions.
Are you an accountant, broker, or adviser? Join our Independent Consultant network and help your own clients raise capital.
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Contact

Email admin@austpac.au
Web austpac.au
Location Brisbane, Queensland, Australia