Do you know that in 1795, French despot Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 francs as a reward for a grand challenge to preserve food?
Or that Nike’s gamified platform Nike+ helped it to capture nearly 50% of the running shoe market?
Do you know that in 1795, French despot Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 francs as a reward for a grand challenge to preserve food?
Or that Nike’s gamified platform Nike+ helped it to capture nearly 50% of the running shoe market?
Do you wanna fund a start-up?
If so, good news! StarHub’s Crowdtivate – an Asian-focused crowdfunding platform launched in April this year – now has 12 Asia-based projects available for support. As a rewards-based platform, Crowdtivate mandates that listed projects should provide different levels of rewards for funders of differing quantums, with a minimum sum of S$5. Often, funders will enjoy a special “early bird” price for a new product as its backers.
Is there a crowdfunding market in Asia? How does it differ from the West?
According to a Business Times article late last year, the crowdfunding market potential for South East Asia is projected to grow to some US$8.9 billion come 2025. In Singapore, total venture capital funds in start-ups were only about S$25.2 million in 2012 – a proverbial drop in the vast ocean considering our status as a financial hub. Against such a backdrop, it is evident that there is much potential for crowd-sourced funds to grow.
Thanks to a presentation by Nicola Castelnuovo of Crowdonomic at the recent Crowdsourcing Week Global 2014, I picked up a thing or two about the crowdfunding eco-system in our neck of the woods.
“Participation is the new brand.” – Chaordix
“The future of organisations is bringing chaos and order together” – Dee Hock (founder of VISA)
Well, Sean Moffitt (above), author of Wikibrands, seem to think so. And he isn’t the only one.
If you’ve followed the news, you would know that Singapore start up Pirate3D (a 3D printer maker) raised a staggering $366,763 from crowd funding platform Kickstarter just 24 hours after being listed! With almost 2,000 backers, the firm has already raised close to $770,000 in total which is way above its $100,000 target.
Congratulations to our boys and girls in blue for making the first Facebook arrest!
According to the Singapore Police Force’s (SPF) media release, this development came on 11 Nov 2011 (an auspicious 11/11/11!) when a “public-spirited person called 999 and informed that he could identify a loanshark suspect from a photo posted on the Police Facebook Page since July 2009. The action led to the arrest of two 19 year old suspects for involvement in loanshark harassment activities in the Bukit Merah area.