Booktopia Celebrates Sweet 16th with a $20 Million Capital Raise

This capital raise, which underscores ‘investors’ confidence in the future’ of the e-commerce book industry, is said to continue its strong growth.

“Booktopia has come so far, and the team is rightly proud to have built this 100 percent Australian owned business to scale from within our own internal resources,” said Tony Nash, CEO of Booktopia. “We are thrilled to have this round of funding in place. The funding will allow us to accelerate our growth in a controlled and measured way by investing in our ability to deliver to Australian book consumers through expanded distribution infrastructure and stock. This has been a proven high growth and predictable model for us for 16 years, and we are not about to change. We know that’s what our customers want from us.”

“Furthermore, it was very important who we brought on board as investors who can add value to our business for the next phase of our journey, and we are delighted to have such an experienced group who understand e-commerce, retail and the capital markets.”

The capital raise will be completed with ASFG Capital and will include a portion of long-term debt.

In FY19, Booktopia raised $131 million in revenue and is ‘currently on track’ to deliver revenues of $175 million by the end of the calendar year.

“The capital raised will go exclusively toward funding growth over the next few years and establishes a solid foundation for future capital market engagement,” said Mark Paton, Managing Director of AFSG Capital of Booktopia’s track record, which has been rapid in profit growth.

In late January, Booktopia acquired The Co-Op, which will operate under a new name. Currently, Booktopia is the number one retailer of higher education academic textbooks, surpassing the Co-Op’s market share in the last 12 months.

This acquisition of The Co-Op was ‘fortuitous’ and is entirely separate from this current capital raise.

“We were already very well advanced with our private investors before The Co-op went into administration and as Tertiary Academic Sales were already a significant portion of our revenue it was deemed that if the numbers worked, then we would purchase it from within our own financial capacity,” Nash explained.

Like this story? Sign-up for the free Pulse Weekly Newsletter for more essential online retail content.