Following the success of Kickstarter.com and IndieGoGo.com, crowdfunding platforms around the world have taken off. There is big money involved. By mid-2014, Kickstarter had already raised more than $1 billion for projects hosted on the site in just 4 years. Now, regional platforms are trying to get in on the action to unleash the potential of crowdfunding in emerging markets, especially in North Africa.
There are four crowdfunding platforms looking to open the market in North Africa. One is Zoomaal, the established crowdfunding player focusing in the Arab world. The rest are new players coming from the Maghreb region.
Four new players
Zoomaal is now looking to hire two country managers, one based in Egypt and one in Morocco, to develop their business in North Africa, according to founder and CEO Abdallah Absi. They have already hosted a number of successful projects in the region, like a pop-up museum and an agriculture and women’s empowerment initiative, he added.
CoFundy is a general French crowdfunding platform and is at an earlier stage of development than Zoomaal. It has hosted several successful projects since it launched end of 2014. Right now it is active in Tunisia, where the team is based, and Morocco but plans to expand to Algeria in the near future and, eventually, to test the market in West Africa.
Smala & Co is a Morocco-specific platform registered in France that hosts projects related to the environment, social entrepreneurship and culture. “We aim to propose an alternative and ecologic solution to finance innovative and creative projects,” co-founder Arnaud Pinier told Wamda.
Source: AFK Insider
