Case Studies

Crowdfunding kiwi creativity

Funding a project can be no easy feat. Tapping into your network of family, friends, and fans to help raise funds upfront is a new trend known as ‘crowdfunding’ and Wellington startup PledgeMe has turned crowdfunding into a very successful business model.

Funding a project can be no easy feat. Tapping into your network of family, friends, and fans to help raise funds upfront is a new trend known as ‘crowdfunding’. This means that projects no longer need to rely solely on self-funding or accessing government grants or venture capital. Crowdfunding is based on an all-or-nothing model, meaning that the projects are only funded if they reach their goal by their deadline.

Wellington startup PledgeMe has turned crowdfunding into a successful business model. Over $370,000 has been pledged by almost 5000 pledgers, resulting in over 75 successfully funded projects. PledgeMe’s success rate is double that of accessing normal creative funding.

Camilo Borges and Anna Guenther founded PledgeMe after discovering the ever growing crowdfunding trend. Both saw the huge potential in crowdfunding in New Zealand, sparking the idea for PledgeMe. “PledgeMe’s a local crowdfunding website” Says Anna “we’re an online platform creating an offline community. While there are similar global websites our home-grown nature and local focus makes us different and more appealing”.

With crowdfunding being a relatively new approach to acquiring funding, one of Anna and Camilo’s most important jobs is educating the public on the crowdfunding phenomenon. “There are still a lot of people that have never even heard of the concept. This is changing - especially thanks to high profile projects like Taika Waititi's project on US crowdfunding site Kickstarter.com, where he crowdfunded the U.S. distribution costs for the movie ‘Boy’”.

Although most of their project creators are based in New Zealand, PledgeMe is getting projects from around the world. “The people pledging on projects come from everywhere. We've had pledgers in Russia, the US, Canada, South America - anyone with a credit card who has a kiwi friend crowdfunding” Says Anna.

So what type of projects do people put on PledgeMe? Everything and anything. “’Uncle Berties Botanarium’ was our quirkiest to date. They asked for almost $7,000 to record their radio podcast, and exceeded that goal by over $1,000. The largest project to date has been ‘Gone Curling’. They raised over $21,000 for a documentary on curling in New Zealand” Says Anna.

The success rate of projects put on PledgeMe is 52%. “This is a very good success rate, and better than the 44% average of crowdfunding giant Kickstarter” says Anna. “Anyone with a New Zealand bank account can create a project, and anyone with a valid credit card can pledge”.

Anna and the team at PledgeMe have worked closely with Grow Wellington’s Business Growth Manager Karen Bender. “Grow Wellington has been wonderful. Not only has Karen provided sound advice, but she's connected us to some great advisors for tax and business processes, supported us when we had some challenges earlier in the year with our payment portal, and is very solution oriented. It's hard enough setting up a business the first of its kind in New Zealand, so the more help and support available, the better” Says Anna. “You need to build a network of trusted advisors and supporters to help you keep it real - Grow Wellington is great for that.”

PledgeMe is now working on their next step and other areas that crowdfunding can support. With over 300 websites like PledgeMe around the world crowdfunding is catching on as a quick and reliable way of getting a creative project underway. “We’re not going anywhere” says Anna “Watch this space!”

See PledgeMe on Nightline here or check out their YouTube clip below.