A SCOTTISH company behind an online service which aims to support people in reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £500,000.
The new investment be will used to continue One Year No Beer's growth, enhance its app technology, and further scale its system which it claims can help facilitate behavioural changes.
OYNB was launched as a free service in 2015 by founder Ruari Fairbairns and the company so far raised over £1.8m from more than 500 investors including ex-Facebook director Mark Cowan; CEO and founder of Spartan and Death Race, Joe De Sena; and former global head of mergers and acquisitions at HSBC, Alain Renaud.
Edinburgh-based OYNB now has more than 80,000 members in 137 countries across the globe and has generated over £2.2m in revenue with 85% growth in its Alcohol-Free Challenge sales between February and June this year.
Mr Fairbairns said: “We’re delighted to launch this latest crowd-funding round and we continue our global mission to help people change their relationship with alcohol and effect other positive behaviour changes, through the power of online community and connection. The funds will further support scaling of the business including the development of native IOS and Android Apps which will make our service easily accessible to a wider audience.
“With over 80,000 members in 137 countries, our community continues to support our core mission remains focused on reducing individuals’ alcohol consumption and addressing negative habits through various behavioural science and positive psychology programmes.
“With research showing the detrimental impact of Covid restrictions on mental health and a significant rise in alcohol consumption as well as alcohol-related deaths, there’s a growing need both in the UK and across other parts of the world for the benefits of our programme.”
The firm said: “OYNB is not an abstinence programme; it is not about eliminating alcohol entirely. It’s about empowering people to break down old habits and build new ones, creating a positive mindset that lets the individual take back control and make better life choices.”
Glasgow's Lorne Hotel: Administrator 'extremely pleased' with interest
THE administrator overseeing the marketing of the renowned Lorne Hotel in Glasgow has said he is "extremely pleased" with the level of interest so far.
Shan Saba: Food sector staff shortages to make for a lean festive season
OPINION: The “pingdemic” and HGV driver crisis has led to shortages in our supermarkets and has become a daily topic for most of us in Scotland.
Sign up
You can now have the new enhanced Business Briefing sent direct to your inbox, and Business Week for the weekly round-up on Sunday, by clicking below:
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here