SlingFin, a manufacturer of premium quality backcountry and expedition tents, has met its initial goal of raising $100,000 through its partnership with Wefunder, an investment platform that allows non-accredited individuals (those whose net-worth is less than $1 millkion) to invest as little as $100. In turn, SlingFin has set a final stretch goal of raising a total of $150,000 before closing the six-month funding round on December 19, 2016.
SlingFin president and founder Martin Zemitis was among a group of eight co-founders and an investor who started Mountain Hardwear in 1993. The founding group sold Mountain Hardwear to Columbia Sportswear in 2003, with the investor making the majority of the profit.
“There are many reasons to invest in SlingFin,” says Al Tabor, a SlingFin investor who was also involved in the founding of Mountain Hardwear. “We’ve seen gear nerds, mini-moguls and patrons investing in SlingFin, but I’d like to suggest another reason for Outdoor Industry insiders to invest.
“Typically the folks that created value have not generally been the folks that harvested that value,” he continued. “Very few of successful outdoor brands over the past 50 years are still owned by the founders. Using Wefunder, SlingFin is inviting anyone in the outdoor industry to own a piece of the brand and reap the benefits down the road along with SlingFin employees.”
SlingFin says it will put the funds raised to work immediately to increase factory order sizes and take advantage of volume pricing. This inventory boost will allow the brand to expand their dealer network and solve the repeated challenge of running out of inventory and losing out on sales. In addition, the brand plans to grow marketing efforts beyond customer word-of-mouth and add the Honey Badger, a patented hard-shell backpack design to their product offerings.
“SlingFin has plenty of orders for tents, but we’ve needed financing to buy the raw goods and factory space to manufacture them,” says Zemitis. “We’re there now with the $100K we’ve raised so far, but another $50K, will get us even further and we won’t have to do another round of fundraising in the near future and I can get back to designing equipment. It’s what I do best.”
The Wefunder platform is based on the recently passed Title III of the JOBS Act.
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