THE team behind Scotland’s first community-owned whisky distillery were toasting success last night after their crowdfunding bid raised £2.5 million.
More than 2,440 investors from around the world snapped up a taste of the innovative GlenWyvis Distillery, which will return whisky making to the Dingwall area after almost a century.
The construction team will break ground on Monday as work to build a visitor centre and production facility gets under way.
Last night, farmer John Mckenzie and his team raised a toast to their backers after raising £2,533,510 in a record-breaking online offer.
Launched in April, the GlenWyvis project is both the largest community share offer and project floated on the crowdfunder website to date, as well as the only one of its kind for a whisky distillery.
Mckenzie, a helicopter pilot, told The National: “We are chuffed to bits. We must have done something right.”
The first whisky will hit the shelves to coincide with Burns Night in January, but before then the team have the task of sending investor certificates and rewards around the world.
The share offer attracted supporters in more than 20 countries including Brazil, Finland, France, Hungary, Switzerland and Venezuela and a deal has been struck with couriers DHL.
Meanwhile, Scots shareholders include former First Minister Alex Salmond, who was set to join the celebrations last night.
The GlenWyvis team had initially aimed to raise £1.5 million, but stretched the target in response to public interest. McKenzie says the result has taken the team by surprise and leaves the fledgling company in a robust financial position.
He said: “The total amount we needed to raise is actually £3 million, which also included bank lending.
“Although we have raised £2.5 million, once the Paypal and Worldpay commissions are taken off, it won’t be quite as much as that but we have also secured funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who are quite impressed by the crowdfunder.
“We are in a very strong financial position and we are re-doing the business plan. We need not to be victims of our own success, so we need to make sure we still business plan everything.”
He added: “When people believe in something, they go ‘this is genuine, we back this’. You don’t get that often.
“We have had so many nice messages from people all around the world. Dingwall is very much on the map.”
Speaking about the potential for the feat to be repeated, Mckenzie said: “Someone will always try and I’ll be very pleased if they do. Whisky is the national drink so it is a great leading project for people to look at and see what they can do.
“We are all people, we have all got elbow grease in us. Everybody can give this thing a go.
“We have created a world first but let’s face it, Scottish people have done that a few times.”
SNP MSP Kate Forbes is due to visit the GlenWyvis site on Monday to raise the flag as workers break ground.
The distillery will also feature on BBC Alba the same day, with a webcam going live to allow the global team of investors to watch as their new company comes to life.
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