Stirling & Hinds
Stirling & Hinds is a female-led Australian fast-moving consumer goods business creating innovative lifestyle brands across home fragrance, personal care, skincare and cosmetics.
Need
To meet growing demand in the United States (US), Stirling & Hinds needed additional working capital to fund manufacturing, inventory and long export lead times. With products required on shelves months before payment, bridging the cash flow gap was essential to meeting delivery deadlines.
Solution
We provided a $350,000 Small Business Export Loan to support working capital for production, supplier deposits and shipping timelines to support export growth. This enabled Stirling & Hinds to manufacture at scale, maintain inventory buffers and meet the requirements of a major US retailer.
Founded in 2020 by three Australian women determined to do things better, Stirling & Hinds creates lifestyle brands that deliver beautiful, high-quality products at accessible price points. Proudly Australian made, each product is thoughtfully developed over time, created with intention, refined with care, and ultimately made to be something the founders truly love and are proud to stand behind.
After launching its first brand, Green Nation Life, Stirling & Hinds quickly secured distribution in major Australian supermarkets. Not long after, distributors across Asia began approaching the business proactively, and exports arose opportunistically. The business now delivers products across a wide range of categories, including air care, home care, candles, diffusers and cleaning products in Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.
Following this success, Stirling & Hinds launched Nobody’s Nobody, expanding into the premium, accessible skincare space. With extensive experience in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, Alanna Hinds, Co-Founder and Director of Stirling & Hinds, described the frustration she often felt when shopping for cosmetics, which fuelled her passion to challenge industry norms and create a more affordable, high-quality alternative.
Export Finance Australia helped us fund the stock we needed to get into America. The support was invaluable. It gave us the ability to move fast and deliver on the opportunity.
Alanna Hinds
Co-Founder & Director, Stirling & Hinds
“I was sick of going into stores and my daughter buying one item for $130, when I knew it didn't represent $130 of value or premium ingredients,” she said. “This range is about being able to buy four or five products for $100 and getting a full skincare routine. Making premium products a lot more affordable, the quality is always paramount for us.”
Organic growth into global markets
In 2025, Nobody’s Nobody secured a contract to launch into 1,800 stores of a major US retailer, a major milestone for Stirling & Hinds. It was at this point that the business reached out to our team to explore financing options.
Rapid growth, domestic or international, can create operational and cash flow challenges. For Stirling & Hinds, its products bound for the US required longer production lead times, a five-week sea freight journey, eight weeks’ safety checks and warehousing time, and payment terms extending beyond delivery.
“Moving into the overseas market with the large retail order in the US, we approached Export Finance Australia. It was directly involved in helping us fund the stock we needed to get to America.”
“When you’re exporting, you have to send the products long before they’re due in store,” Alanna said. “They left in late November to be on the shelf by 1 February. And then there’s payment terms. It’s quite a long process.”
Manufacturers also required significant upfront deposits, often up to 50%, for large production runs or specialised ingredients.
Finance to support export production
We provided a $350,000 Small Business Export Loan for working capital to cover production, supplier deposits and increased inventory, freight and logistics capacity, ultimately enabling the business to meet the tight global timelines.
“The support was invaluable. When retailers place confirmed orders for launch, the deadline to supply can be quite tight, so it’s imperative that you can start producing immediately or you risk not being able to meet orders on time.”
Throughout its global journey, Stirling & Hinds received support from across government agencies and established a comprehensive on-the-ground team in the US, including warehousing, operations, risk management and compliance, a network of support Alanna described as critical to global expansion.
“You need a strong team on the ground. There is so much you need to know and have set up before you start, because if you start and it’s wrong, it’s a disaster. We now have more teams in the US than Australia, but you really need that support.”
The business has now established a US entity, Stirling & Hinds Incorporated, laying a platform for future global expansion. Having successfully launched in the US, the business is now preparing to expand further within the market before turning to the United Kingdom and Europe.
