Join in an exciting new women-led natural building investment opportunity that will help see the industry develop and grow.

Following an exciting life traveling and working across several industries, but also importantly learning the insides of a product start-up, Andi Lucas has since 2018 brought her experience to the Hemp industry in Tasmania, with eyes on a bigger prize.

As the sole original investor who worked tiredly for years before starting to hire (only women) to grow her business X-Hemp, Andi also serves as President at the Tasmanian Hemp Association and believes wholeheartedly in her product and vision. Andi soon realised the enormous breadth of opportunities available to hemp, such as food, fibre, extracts, fodder, carbon – everything from farm ecology through to agriculture, and everything in between.

Andi Lucas created X-Hemp to empower and enable women to fully participate in Tasmania’s economic and community life, specifically in rural areas, and to build more resilient homes for the rapidly changing climate.

X-Hemp is Tasmania’s only hemp fibre processing mill and grows its own crops and works with the Tasmanian state’s licensed hemp farmers, converting the grain stubble left from the hemp seed harvest – which was previously being burned off as waste – into saleable products. X-Hemp sells hemp for building materials, mulch for landscaping, bast for specialty paper production, and other outputs for alternative uses such as animal bedding. It’s the housing side that really excited Andi as there is currently a short supply of domestically supplied hemp hurd in the building industry and Andi wants to change that so she can continue to supply builders across Tasmania and into Australia with the sustainable fibre.

Currently funded by a network of over 30 lenders, X-Hemp allows Andi to combine three of her key passions: sustainability, supporting women, and housing security.

“Hempcrete houses are incredibly healthy and mould resistant,” says Andi. “They’re non-combustible, so you’ve got a much more fire-resistant house, and they’ve got an incredibly long lifecycle: the French have given hempcrete buildings a warranty of 200 years. They also require very low energy use; you don’t need to spend a lot of money on heating or cooling. Look at the pain people are suffering every winter because of high electrical expenses in poorly insulated houses. The very poorest people living in the worst housing pay the most for their power to heat that very poorly. It’s just nuts, and we can do so much better than that.”

Because of the conflicted and oft-times contentious political history of hemp, as it relates to its sister product marijuana, Andi has come across numerous barrier to developing her business that many other building supplies or material companies simply would not. From social media platforms refusing to advertise her wares because it ‘contravenes community standards’ to banks refusing to lend due to the potential fallibility of agriculture start-ups, and the place of hemp within the matrix of Australia’s monopolised building landscape, Andi has decided to capital raise through the platform Birchal and is looking for supporters.

Early in September, 2023, Andi presented a webinar explaining her origins, business model, potential growth strategies and the broader vision of X-Hemp and you can watch the recording of this session here.

There are already a number of barriers facing natural building businesses across the country, and scalability has always been limited due to regulatory limitations, labour and lack of investment. Andi is looking to grow the Hemp industry from her humble beginnings in Tasmania and Natural Building Australia is proud to support her realise her dreams for the women of Launceston, and the bigger picture industry that relies on a steady supply of hemp in order to continue to build sustainable houses.

If you’re interested in signing on for the forthcoming raise, head to the Birchal site and put in an EOI before the 18th of September 2023 when the offer goes live.