Stirlingshire-based Rùn Dog Food is appealing for crowdfunders through a unique programme helping women-led businesses to access finance.
Founder Lucy Millar is appealing for funding to help her develop a new generation of products. Her company is the only pet food business taking part in a new campaign developed by Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) with support from Royal Bank of Scotland and The Productivity Institute.
Initially running as a pilot with eight women-led businesses from across Scotland taking part, the crowdfunding campaigns are looking to raise funds ranging from £2,000 to £25,000 during the next few weeks.
Rùn Dog Food specialises in cold pressed, minimally processed, premium food and baked treats for active, outdoorsy dogs. The crowdfunder is looking to raise £15,000 to develop a new range of products including training treats, energy bars and a new range of cold pressed food recipes.
Millar said: “I think every entrepreneur to ever launch a start-up business knows how difficult it is to grow and expand your product range during the early years. A business can be absolutely thriving, but still not be at a stage to pay its founder a salary, because every single penny goes straight back into growing the business.
“Here at Rùn, the focus has always been on what’s best for dogs. What can we do that’s truly different and beneficial? We are now right at the edge of being able to launch some really innovative products that are genuinely new and fresh to the market, and we need financial support in order to do it now rather than in a few years’ time. By supporting Rùn, dog owners are helping a small family business that actually truly cares, to launch their products before a massive corporate business does something similar.
“There’s so little financial support out there for product-based businesses, and especially for those founded by women. This pilot crowdfunder scheme from WES is an absolutely game changer for our demographic of entrepreneurs!”
Rùn Dog Food’s crowdfunder can be found at https://www.rundogfood.com/.
