Company vision

The company's vision is set to be tested on March 21, when Australian customers will be able to order its products online.

E-cigarettes are a battery-powered replacement for tobacco cigarettes that allow users to inhale nicotine by vapourising a liquid solution. Although the potential harms of nicotine use on health are significant, proponents of e-cigarettes say e-cigarettes help smokers quit tobacco cigarettes. Nicovape's vision statement reads: "To free the world form the senseless and avoidable global epidemic caused by smoking."

Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone said health authorities did not accept e-cigarettes were an effective aid to quitting smoking and most doctors would not prescribe them.

"We'd encourage people seeking to quit to go and see their doctor in person to discuss the range of medication and cessation aids that best suit their needs. Nicovape only promotes e-cigarettes and related solutions," he said.

US-based Juul has faced backlash for its association with teenage nicotine use. Juul

After a series of mergers, Nicovape said it had gained ownership over its "entire supply chain", which extends from hardware manufacturing plants in Shenzhen to supplier agreements in New Zealand. It is now fundraising for its Series A round.

Juul would struggle


If Nicovape does succeed in scaling its business in Australia, there is nothing to keep rivals such as Juul, the United States-based company that was valued at $US38 billion ($53 billion) in December, from replicating its model.

But Mr Boulton said Juul would struggle to find Australian doctors to issue medical prescriptions, citing controversies around the brand's association with teens. Nicovape's target audience was smokers older than 35 and mostly male, who had wrestled with addiction to tobacco cigarettes.

The company said Australia had the potential for rapid, widespread adoption of e-cigarettes because it had "the world's highest tobacco prices and being the last of the OECD countries".

Tim Kennedy, a former sales partner for British e-cigarette company E-Lites and an early backer of Nicovape, said he had given up hope on Australia as a market for e-cigarettes until he met Mr Boulton. "There's vaping people who go into business. Then there's business people who go into the vaping industry," he said.