Starting and Building Wholesale Investor: 10 Years On

11th July 2016, LinkedIn

Letter from Steve Torso, Founder and Managing Director, Wholesale Investor

I Founded Wholesale Investor (“WI”) in Oct 2008 to provide a way for high net worth investors to get access to early stage companies. It is a week I will never forget because as we were launching, the Dow Jones was dropping 20%. At that time, it was obvious that the market was quite fragmented with no central place for investors to discover deals and news related to those companies.

Since our launch, WI has built a large following in Australasia amongst HNW and sophisticated investors with over 14,000 subscribers in Australia and Asia. The business has been built on the simple premise of using an online and event based platform to connecting emerging companies and investors.

Recently it was announced in the AFR that Investec Australia Limited (“Investec”) has made an investment in Wholesale Investor. This investment provides us with the capital to accelerate our growth in the next phase of our journey, along with providing companies and investors more services.

It is amazing how quickly the 10 years has passed. It is also fascinating to know that our simple idea which started out as a glossy magazine, has now enabled us to host 40+ Showcase events, in 12 countries, to over 5000 attendees and profile over 300 companies in the last 12 months alone.

Whilst building the business has come with its fair share of ups and downs, the passion at our core has always been about creating more visibility and opportunity for innovation and emerging companies. Thank you to our Advisor Jamie Olsen and CMB Capital, who have been great in helping us strategically and securing investment.

In the first 6 months of this year, over $22mill has been raised as a result of our services. In our recent March and May series of Investor events in Sydney and Melbourne, we have already seen over $4mill invested (from each series) into our clients as a direct result. From our Singapore event 1 month ago… over $2mill has already been secured. This is an exciting time for Emerging Companies to say the least!

We are pleased to welcome Investec as a shareholder. From our first discussions, we realised their shared enthusiasm for the Emerging Company space. Globally, Investec has over 8000 staff, $90billion in AUM and a strong presence in South Africa, UK and Hong Kong. With a history of backing entrepreneurs, Investec recently launched their Emerging Companies Division and will be actively Investing in growth companies throughout the region.

As a subscriber to Wholesale Investor, it is important for you to know we are currently working on the long overdue redevelopment of our platform. We look to make your experience in discovering and investing in opportunities, simpler, faster and more targeted to what you seek. We thank you for your support, event attendance and investment into our clients.

To our Corporate and Event Partners, we wish to say thank you. Without you… the capital being raised and opportunities (locally and internationally) in front of our clients is not possible. PwC, DLA Piper, NZTE, Shareinvestor, Austrade, ASX, AusBiotech, SGX and Bloomberg to name a few.

To our clients, thank you for trusting us with the promotion of our Capital Raising and Investor Profiling. The Wholesale Investor team works hard to facilitate this process and we look forward creating new opportunities in the future for you.

Our ambitions for what is possible… have grown. It is our mission to become the leading Asia-Pacific destination for Trade and Investment with Emerging Companies. Join us for the next phase of journey.