A humble Perth mum, with a not so humble hot sauce empire, has struck gold with her latest equity raise.
Renae Bunster, famous for her Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce, announced today her band of loyal fans across the world have ponied up $300,000 to buy a stake in her company – and that’s before the equity raise was even made public.
Bunsters has doubled its sales every year since being launched from Renae’s Perth kitchen in 2015 and now rakes in over a million dollars every year. It’s fair to say her company is seriously ‘hot sh*t’.
The company even grew its fortunes during the coronavirus lockdown – with March 2020 sales more than doubling the sales of March 2019.
What will the funds raised go towards?
The funds from her latest capital raise with Birchal will be used to fan the company’s successful flames by ramping up production, launching new products, and expanding further in to Asia and Europe, after having successfully conquered America and Canada.
Sidestepping both Woolies & Coles due to the name of her sauce being too naughty to stock, the straight-talking former TV journalist found viral success selling her sauces online all over the world.
Bunsters exporting success has left Australia’s lacklustre supermarket hot sauce selection in the dust. “The range of hot sauces you’ll find on the shelves of the duopoly are weaker than an old man’s bowels’ and about as tasty as them too.
Hot sauce lovers have moved on from Tabasco. And since COVID Aussies want to support Australian made companies. It’s time Coles and Woolies stepped up and supported us too,” says Bunster.
How has the Hot Sauce been performing?
Sh*t the Bed Hot sauce is regularly the #1 selling hot sauce on Amazon USA and is loved by celebrities including Natalie Portman, Wiz Khalifa, Jeff Goldblum and Johnny Knoxville who all ate it on You Tube talk show sensation “Hot Ones” that gets up to 90 million views a month.
Closer to home the sauce is loved by David Koch, Janine Allis and Renae’s mentor, Carman’s Muesli Bar empress, Carolyn Creswell.
Even Chris Hemsworth and Matt Damon took a swag of Bunsters sauces back to Byron Bay with them after their stay in Western Australia last year.
“Most hot sauces are created by men and marketed towards men – with names like “Satan’s this” and “Death’s that” – I wanted my hot sauce to be funny and tasty, not scary and painful,” said Renae Bunster.
“It seems a woman’s touch was all that was needed. Ever since I invented Sh*it the Bed Hot Sauce, I haven’t been able to make it fast enough, which is why I need to raise more capital; to take it to the next level.
Our ginormous sales during the COVID pandemic have proven that people are desperate for a big bottle of heat and flavour to jazz up their cooking.
Even our premium price point in all this economic uncertainty didn’t stop new customers from giving us a try.
Our Amazon ratings are some of the highest for any hot sauce so people just give us a go and then are shocked at how good the sauce tastes.
“Coronavirus has given rise to a massive groundswell of support for Australian made products. We’re Australian, our sauce is made in Australia, by Australian people, using Aussie ingredients and our money stays on Aussie soil,” says Bunster.
Bunsters chooses to use the finest Australian ingredients where possible. “You don’t want to know the sh*t that goes into growing garlic in China – which currently supplies around 80% of the garlic Aussies buy Down Under.
We only use Australian grown garlic and other top notch locally grown Aussie ingredients because they just taste better.
“People are finally realising it’s worth paying a little more for Australian made food that you can trust, because it employs Aussies and keeps Aussie farms in business.
And supporting Australian business at a time like this will help get our economy back on its feet faster.”
It was Bunsters first crowdfunding campaign back in 2015 that kick-started the company in to infamy with its viral sensation: Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce. The little known company headquartered out of Renae’s kitchen had a modest target of $65,000.
But thanks to the virality of the sauce it quickly raised more than $250,000 dollars from 4,000 American, British and Australian backers – and that was before they’d even tasted it.
“Our fans know we’re on to a good thing which is why they’ve invested so heavily in us this time. And we’ve just opened the Birchal Equity raise up to the public having already raised close to $300,000 just from our fans.
I have massive plans for my hot sauce empire to spread in to other aisles of the supermarket that need sprucing up. We want passionate investors to jump on board for the journey with us.
We’re building an iconic Aussie food brand that the rest of the world will love too.”
What does investing in the brand get you?
Perks of investing aren’t so sh*t either, with each tier of investment getting better. An affordable investment of $250 in the company will get you a pretty snazzy Sh*t the Bed keyring /bottle opener to impress your mates.
On top of that $500 gets you a four pack of sauce.
Then on top of that a $1000 investment scores you a gold, personally signed collector’s edition bottle of Shit the Bed that will never be going on sale to the public, (until they find their way on to Ebay for a ridiculous price!).
And if you’re feeling really saucy – the first 100 people to invest $2000 or more will land themselves a place on Bunsters official product tasting team.
And 69 of the places have already been snapped up by die hard Bunsters fans, so get in quick.
“You’ll be our pet guinea pig, test driving each new product before its release, giving us your honest feedback. We can’t promise the experimental hot sauces will be safer than an early trial of a coronavirus vaccine, but they will have a helluvulot more flavour!”
To invest in Bunsters, go to the company’s Equity Crowdfunding page at Birchal. Please visit here.
For more information, visit here.
