PhycoLife Raises $1.85m | Case Study

PhycoLife Equity Crowdfunding Case Study

July, 2025, $1.85m raised

 In July 2025, PhycoLife closed the largest equity crowdfunding raise of FY26. PhycoLife welcomed 790 investors, raising over $1.85m on the OnMarket Platform.

Equity-sourced funding (CSF) has been a core part of Founder & CEO, Pia Winberg’s capital strategy. PhycoLife has a strong community that backs their mission. Pia has harnessed this support to fund their phases of growth. This time round, Pia raised primarily to fund new farm sites, scaling up their processing, refinery, and R&D.

About PhycoLife

PhycoLife is Australia’s first seaweed to products, fully integrated technology platform, since a test tube in 2015. The group includes PhycoLife (seaweed-to-biotech engine), PhycoHealth (award-winning skincare & nutrition line), and farming and operations entity Venus Shell Operations, which sits under the umbrella of Venus Shell Systems Pty Ltd (which CSF investors own a share of).

Since its launch, the brand has 25+ SKUs across food, supplements, and skincare, 3 human trials showing gut-microbiome and skin benefits from Phychondrin, above $150,000 in revenue per month, scaling from $820k revenue in 2024, towards $1.4M in 2025, a 70% increase in revenue this FY.

Insights from Pia Winberg, Founder & CEO

Why OnMarket?

“I felt the experience with OnMarket was fantastic because OnMarket also had all their ducks in a row. The online digital interface's simplicity was there. I love the equity crowdfunding platforms we have been on before, but I feel like we elevated to a new scale, and OnMarket has exposure to a larger investment network, but also is experienced with companies that are going from equity crowdfunding to secondary raises and IPOs.” - Pia Winberg

What motivated you to use equity crowdfunding?

“We knew we had a strong direct customer communication channel, and our customers were very supportive. We also had a very strong base of people from our clinical studies. We just had a very good connection to the public and people that liked the innovation of what we were doing.”  - Pia Winberg

Why equity crowdfunding over venture capital?

“The venture capital market has a tradition that we didn’t fit into because we are quite innovative, and you’ve got to understand the technology we are in, as we are a little bit ahead of the curve. Our customers and the people we’ve touched along the journey of our research, they see where we’re going and what we’ve got. It was a great way to unleash that power that we had of a network of people wanting this to happen.”  

- Pia Winberg

Have you seen any tangible benefits beyond capital?

"Yes, because we are already strong in ecommerce, the event of the equity sourced funding raise coincided with a lot of ecommerce investments we’d made. I wouldn’t say there was one single factor, but they all hit a sweet spot during the crowd raise. Our sales are now accelerating phenomenally."

- Pia Winberg

Where did the investors come from?

"It was very exciting that some of our existing shareholders came back and took up new shares. I was very humbled about that. We also reached many new people and our marketing in the crowd equity space is different to our ecommerce marketing, as we are not selling the product, we are selling the purpose of our company. That also diversified the investor base. We’ve just got such a diversity, many different levels of investment from $500-$100,000." - Pia Winberg

Would you recommend equity crowdfunding?

"I highly recommend it. Equity-sourced funding has been around for seven or so years, and we started just before that. If I had access to crowdsourced funding from the beginning, I would have done that, but it didn’t exist when we were there.” - Pia Winberg

If you are interested in raising capital and you are considering equity crowdfunding. Get in touch at support@onmarket.com.au, for a free capital raising consult.