Over 75 impact-driven African startups have crowdfunded more than €175,000 from the Cheetah Fund and 1%Club as seed funding to kickstart their projects and impact the societies they come from.
Led by Raphael from Cameroon who crowdfunded €4,000 locally to setup a computer school where girls can learn how to code and Charles Muchemi of Kenya’s Cladlight who raised €9,500 euro to produce a smart motor jacket using wearable technology to increase the visibility of motorcyclists and saving lives, the 75 were part of the 100 pioneers trained by 1%Club in the basics of crowdfunding.
The two were among those hwo managed to raise 30% of their target amount via 1%Club within 30 days, and the Cheetah Fund granted them the remaining amount. The Cheetah Fund from the Dutch National Postcode Lottery of €400,000 supported African pioneers with the remaining matching seed money to kick-start or boost their projects.
In a statement to TechMoran, Bart Lacroix, Director 1%Club said: “The new generation of African pioneers will no longer wait until the money floats to them. This Cheetah generation has innovative ideas and are enthusiastic and driven to kick-start their projects themselves. They want to show that they themselves can build their own country. The future of impact funding will move away from the classic top-down investments to more and more bottom up local crowdfunding matched by larger impact funds.”
According to 1%Club, more money than ever is flowing into impact investing nowadays. Yet African social entrepreneurs with innovative world changing ideas still find it difficult to raise capital, in particular in the early stages of their startup. This problem is called the pioneer gap. 1%Club (www.onepercentclub.com) did a pilot to research if crowdfunding can offer a solution to the challenges of funding pioneering projects.