She's back blowing bubbles.
Anna Guenther co-founded PledgeMe in 2012 as part of her master of entrepreneurship studies through the University of Otago, initially as a rewards-based crowdfunding platform.
It stepped up to equity crowdfunding in 2014 when the government introduced new legislation allowing companies to raise investment from the public.
More than $100 million has been raised from the public by more than 200 companies in New Zealand since it came into effect on April 1, 2014.
PledgeMe was the first licensed platform in New Zealand and later became licensed in Australia when it changed its legislation too.
While Ms Guenther stepped aside as chief executive in 2019, she returned to lead the company last year. Having always hated the term chief executive, she preferred to use the moniker Chief Bubble Blower.
In the interim, she was working at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise but the arrival of Covid-19 meant the team was scaled down and she was out of a job.
PledgeMe was still doing what it had done for the past decade, both equity crowdfunding and project-based crowdfunding. In some ways, it seemed it was more needed than ever.
Getting funding had become harder and people were turning to their communities, Ms Guenther said.
There had been some "amazing" recent successes, including Wellington-based ethical underwear and clothing manufacturer Nisa which employed women from refugee and migrant backgrounds.
In March last year, the business was put up for sale, and in June it was announced it was closing. But former staff members launched a PledgeMe fundraiser to reopen the workshop and continue supporting the women that worked there.
While the $100m raised in the past decade was not a small figure, it was not as large as what she thought it was going to be. Ten years, in terms of the financial markets, was not very long at all so it was still early days for the industry; the first stock exchange started in the 1600s and the London and New York stock exchanges began in the late 1700s.
"I think it needs to be 10 times that, especially knowing we are still not seeing women-led companies or regional-led companies. We’re still not seeing that scale we want to see.
"It feels like if we could unlock it we would be supporting more companies in the regions, more women, more social enterprises."
Even for companies with hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, it was still hard to raise money. While she acknowledged it should be hard, "it shouldn’t be as hard as it is".
"What I want to do is make it more accessible, make equity crowdfunding something more companies can do and can do well."
So how to achieve that? It was partly education and partly inspiration — "we get asked a lot, ‘what happens if I fail?"’.
The message from the world’s first zero-waste beauty brand Ethique founder and social entrepreneur Brianne West was "just give it a go", Ms Guenther said.
"This is not going to be a defining moment in your life if you don’t manage to do a capital raise."
While there was so much Kiwi ingenuity about, money was still a topic that was not talked about enough.
The understanding of crowdfunding was much better than it was 10 years ago and most people had now heard of it. There had been more than 70million pledges to the platform.
That was a great number but PledgeMe needed to "keep going".
"We’re definitely not done yet. I think the cool thing [is] just being able to see the impact companies out there are making, the amazing things happening."
Last year, a person invested $100,000 in a company, having never met the founder but loved what the company was doing.
Otago campaigns successfully funded ranged from a weightlifter who raised $1600 to get to the world championships by selling biscuits, to chocolate maker Ocho which raised $2m in 32 hours by selling shares in the company to keep chocolate-making skills in Dunedin.
The biggest success on the equity crowdfunding side was Ethique which provided a return to investors that came into their first equity crowdfunding campaign of 48 times their outlay.
Those who invested $500 had a $25,000 return when the company was sold five years later. The return for some investors enabled them to pay off their mortgages.
The Ethique story was not going to happen for everyone. But for those that got in early, they could play a role in making a "massive success".
Social business Thankyou Payroll, which was initially run from a Port Chalmers garage, provided dividends to investors and was considered a world-first in equity crowdfunding.
The organisation then completed an "exit to community" where they bought shares back from investors to transition their company to being owned by a foundation. Investors in their equity crowdfunding round received a 30% return on investment.
Of the 200 companies, some were no longer around but fewer of those companies had gone under than average. Only 40% of companies established in 2017 were still around today; from the successful companies that had raised via PledgeMe, more than 77% still existed, Ms Guenther said.
So why was she still involved?
"Personally, I love the hands-on, getting in with founders and figuring it out. I still truly believe the best decisions really are made by people’s crowds."
The PledgeMe team was made up of five people, and Ms Guenther was based in Wellington.
She was excited about the next decade in crowdfunding and to "see where things go".
Now a mother to almost 1-year-old daughter Brie, she said the past year had "been a ride but an amazing one".
"It’s crazy how much life changes."
While she initially thought that being a mother could not be harder than running companies, she had decided not getting any sleep was "way harder".
Having a daughter had also made her more focused on how women should be able to raise capital.
