{"id":18115,"date":"2012-07-18T14:07:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T12:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=18115"},"modified":"2012-07-18T14:11:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T12:11:48","slug":"sa-crowdfunding-start-up-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/18115\/sa-crowdfunding-start-up-unveiled\/","title":{"rendered":"SA crowdfunding start-up unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"

StartMe.co.za<\/a>, a new start-up, claims that\u00a0South African entrepreneurs who have struggled to secure finance via traditional means such as bank loans can now take advantage of its new funding mechanism.<\/p>\n

The brainchild of South African entrepreneurs Ben Botes and Lourie Nel, StartMe is an Internet-based funding portal which enables small investors to network and pool resources to finance projects, businesses and other ventures.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the new venture says this involves raising capital by receiving small investments from a large cross-section of people in an Internet community, otherwise known as\u00a0crowdfunding.<\/p>\n

Funding from the crowd<\/strong><\/p>\n

The crowdfunding concept \u2013 raising small monetary stakes from a large group of investors, particularly through online communities and social networks \u2013 derives from \u201ccrowdsourcing\u201d, whereby organisations ask the public, usually via the Internet, to do jobs typically done by their employees. The term was first coined by Jeff Howe who wrote a book on it \u2013 Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business<\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to Crowdsourcing.org, the emergence of crowdfunding platforms (CFPs) around the globe is accelerating. By the end of 2012 there are expected to be more than 530 platforms, up 60% since last year. While the United States leads the crowdfunding trend, with 191 CFPs, crowdfunding is also booming in Europe, with 44 CFPs in Britain and more than 100 in existence across the rest of the Eurozone.<\/p>\n

Crowdsourcing.org predicts that the amount of money raised by international crowdfunding projects during 2012 will reach $2.8 billion, up 91% since 2011.<\/p>\n

New concept in SA<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile South Africa has an abundant supply of finance, accessing it can be cumbersome and challenging, particularly for the budding entrepreneur. Coupled to this, angel investment is still a relatively new concept in South Africa, with few high net worth individuals actively investing in new ventures,\u201d said Botes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest issue facing entrepreneurs today is funding their ideas to fruition. Approaching banks requires that the entrepreneur follows certain eligibility criteria such as credit worthiness, security etc. This can lead to delays in getting the business off the ground and the potential of losing first-mover advantage. With StartMe the entrepreneur can raise money in just a few months to expand their business or start their business from the crowd,\u201d the company lead said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur platform seeks to secure financing for projects in South Africa in a variety of areas, including music, cinema, visual arts, design, fashion, innovation and technology. The landing of our platform in South Africa is part of our strategy to become a regional player in Africa as Africa presents an amazing talent pool and the growth of social networking and electronic commerce have grown significantly over the last few years within the continent,\u201d Botes concluded.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

RainFin aims to \u201cshake up\u201d financial services in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Wonga aiming for right local formula<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Social lending to hit SA banking<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Businesses are continuing to cut costs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

StartMe.co.za claims that South African entrepreneurs can take advantage of its new funding mechanism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":18125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3602,3600,3603,26,3601],"class_list":["post-18115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-ben-botes","tag-crowdfunding","tag-crowdsourcing-org","tag-headline","tag-startme-co-za"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18115"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18132,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115\/revisions\/18132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}