What the CSF regime actually allows, who qualifies, and what it costs to run a campaign properly.
Crowd-sourced funding lets an Australian company raise from the public — retail investors, not just sophisticated ones — without a prospectus. It is a real alternative to a seed round for a company with a customer base, and it is also the capital raising channel most often attempted by companies that do not qualify for it.
The rules are narrow and specific. Most of the work is deciding, early and honestly, whether you are eligible and whether the economics make sense before you spend anything.
This is general information, not advice. CatenaHQ is software. Nothing on this page is legal, financial or investment advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances. The thresholds below are current as at October 2026 and come from ASIC's published guidance; the rules change. A CSF offer must be made through a licensed intermediary, who has their own obligations.
Unlisted public companies, and eligible proprietary companies. You do not have to convert to a public company, but a proprietary company takes on extra obligations if it uses CSF.
Less than $25 million in assets and less than $25 million in annual turnover. Measured across the group, so a parent with subsidiaries counts the lot.
The company must be unlisted. A listed company cannot use the regime.
Ordinary shares only. Not preference shares, not notes, not options. If your round depends on a preference structure, CSF is not the vehicle for it.
A company may raise up to $5 million in any 12-month period through CSF offers. A retail investor may put in at most $10,000 per company per 12 months.
That second number sets the shape of the whole campaign. At $10,000 a head, a $2 million raise needs at least 200 investors and realistically many more, because the average cheque is far below the cap. This is why a CSF campaign is a marketing exercise with a capital raise attached, rather than the other way round, and why the preparation looks nothing like a seed round with ten names on a list.
Retail investors also get a five-day cooling-off period, during which they can withdraw and get their money back. Your raise is not closed when the target is hit.
A CSF offer must be made through a CSF intermediary holding an Australian financial services licence authorised to provide crowd-sourced funding services. The intermediary hosts the offer, runs the application and payment process, performs its own checks on the company and the offer document, and carries the licensing obligation. You are not permitted to run the offer off your own website.
That shapes the relationship: the platform is not a vendor you instruct, it is a licensee with its own regulatory exposure and its own approval process. Expect it to say no to things.
A proprietary company that uses CSF picks up obligations that normally belong to public companies, and they do not stop when the campaign does:
The audit trigger is cumulative across CSF offers, not per campaign. A company that raises $2 million now and $1.5 million in two years crosses it, and the obligation arrives with the second raise rather than the first.
A $10,000 individual cap means hundreds of shareholders, each of whom is a real person on your register with real rights for as long as they hold.
A deck that works for a VC is not a CSF offer document. The audience, the content requirements and the approval process are all different.
Platform fees, a campaign video, marketing and legal review are real line items. Model them against the raise target before committing, not after.
Hundreds of new shareholders arrive at settlement. Communications, voting and transfers become an ongoing job, and a spreadsheet stops coping around the point the campaign succeeds.
The honest test of a CSF raise is whether the numbers still work once the costs are in, and whether the company is ready for the scrutiny. Both are worth answering before you approach a platform:
Ten questions, a score, and where to focus your preparation before an equity crowdfunding raise.
Enter your raise target and see the realistic total cost of running a campaign: platform fees, video, marketing and legal review, with net proceeds after all costs.
CatenaHQ runs the campaign side with the intermediary: document collection, offer document preparation and approval, expressions of interest, applications and cooling-off, and settlement onto the share register. The intermediary makes the offer and holds the licence; the company and the platform manage the work alongside it. More on equity crowdfunding advisory.
Running a CSF offer from expressions of interest through to settlement is what the investment campaigns module is for.
All of the CatenaHQ guides are written the same way: from the Act and the regulations, with the section numbers shown. One interaction worth knowing before you run a campaign: a company with more than fifty shareholders may be widely held and therefore excluded from the ESIC incentive, and a CSF raise is designed to produce hundreds.
The exceptions a private raise uses when it is not going to the public, and the accountant’s certificate with its six-month life.
Hundreds of new shareholders arrive at settlement. What the register must contain, and who can ask you for a copy.