The capital raising of Sharity Impact, part of the OXO Group portfolio, was successfully completed in September. The capital raising was a pilot to complement the existing equity investment of approximately HUF 40 million by OXO Labs, with the direct participation of the closed investor community of the group. This eventually raised a further investment of more than HUF 150 million, several times the target amount.
Sharity is a Hungarian innovation that has already received international recognition. The digital platform and application they have developed enables users to track the progress of the money they wish to donate to NGOs. At the same time, the platform also reaches out to those who cannot contribute to charity campaigns, who can support the projects of their choice by viewing advertisements. In this way, Sharity not only serves charitable causes, but also offers an innovative solution to transform the advertising market in line with sustainability requirements and ESG guidelines, while the awareness raising ads also provide education for users.
The developments to date have been financed partly by the founders' own resources and partly by a HUF 40 million seed investment from OXO Group as a leading technology investment group in the domestic market. The additional capital raised by the end of September was intended to provide further funds to enable the development of the application to be integrated with other web platforms and to be available in other languages - and thus to target international markets. Meanwhile, Sharity's previous vision included expanding the ownership base with a stake in the success of their operations. In this respect, the fundraising has also proved to be very successful, raising over an additional HUF 150 million, in return for which the new investors will acquire a total stake of around 12%.
In the course of its operating practice, the OXO Group regularly gives its shareholders the opportunity to co-invest in certain portfolio companies. Sharity Impact's highly successful fundraising has confirmed the belief that, as an option to capital raising attempts that are highly difficult in the current economic climate, it can still be effective for OXO Group to validate a company's need for funds and growth plans with its own investment. At the same time, it provides a direct opportunity for a wider range of private investors to co-invest in businesses that are of interest and commercially attractive to them, with the flexibility to invest in proportion to their risk appetite.
Based on this experience, the Group intends to make the currently closed investor platform OXO Stock public in the near future and to use it directly for a wider range of crowdfunding campaigns. In the future, OXO Group's investment team will use this platform to make available additional projects that they consider suitable for a larger number of co- investors to complement their own capital investment. As new investment opportunities arise, the Group will endeavour to announce them on their own platforms and in the press.