Crowdfunding platforms have been around for no more than 2 years in Iran. Though a new concept and having Iran’s currency value in mind, $250k crowd-raised money seems to be an interesting number for this emerging market.
Introducing the mechanism of a new platform such as crowdfunding comes with multiple obstacles and challenges. From informing about the concept of raising fund through crowdfunding, to building the necessary trust for users and meddling with legal issues are amongst the challenges facing these startups. It has been reported that a research on the legal structure and regulations of crowdfunding have been sent to the Iranian regulators and the parliament to be researched and the rules to be structured.
Most of the fund raised through these crowdfunding platforms were on charity and social projects. Mehrabane as the leading Iranian crowdfunding platform also focuses on charity fundraising. Mehrabane is responsible of more than one third of all the money raised through crowdfunding with a total of $86k. Following Mehrabane is 2nate with a total of $58k fund raised. 2nate’s initial focus was also on charity but it has also expanded its focuses on other types of project including the Kickstarter like product fundraising projects.
Fundorun, a crowdfunding platform with a focus on cultural, charity and artistic projects raised a total of $47k. Hamijoo also has a similiar project and market focus like Fundorun with a more focus on supporting local Iranian artists and their projects. Hamijoo also raised $34.5k since it’s launch according to its finished fundraising projects on its website. Fundly.ir also raised $10k on multiple subjects form event fundraising to software projects.
The total of crowd-funded money raised through these 5 crowdfunding platforms mentioned above equal to an estimate number of $250k. Now this number is calculated based on the closed crowdfunding projects listed on their websites. The exact number could be higher than the number listed here.
Another factor to consider is the currency value that the Iranian Rial has. $250k could be a low number even at the early days of crowdfunding in the US, but comparing to the salaries and expenses in Iran this number is a great benchmark for Iran’s crowdfunding game. More than 70% of the crowdfunding projects were charity and social projects as they attracted more contributors and were easier to build trust around. Stay tuned for a more comprehensive analysis report of Iran’s crowdfunding scene from TechRasa’s research division by the end of the year.
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