New site for crowdfunding

New site for crowdfunding

Thailand's new crowdfunding website, www.dreamaker.cf, will offer an alternative fund-raising source for budding entrepreneurs by the end of this month.

The website, owned by Dreamaker Crowdfunding, is aimed at capitalising on the government's digital economy policy to promote new technology and innovative entrepreneurs. 

Crowdfunding is not popular in Thailand and so far there are only a couple of sites, such as www.taejai.com and www.perdmuak.com. But Aekkasit Diewwanit, chief executive of Dreamaker, says the business has strong potential. 

"With the growing number of internet users and widespread social media usage as well as the rising number of tech-innovative entrepreneurs, Thailand is ready for the crowdfunding model," he said.

Crowdfunding is an alternative model for SMEs that cannot access the conventional financial system and have limited access to venture capital.

The concept of Dreamaker, which bills itself as the "crowdfunding portal for inno-creative ideas", is reward-based, enabling both individuals and organisations to develop their projects by posting and sharing them on the portal in order to raise funds from supporters.

The website targets for each individual project to raise funds of at least 100,000 baht and a project can be posted for a period of 30-60 days.

Those who are interested in a certain project can pledge funds. When a project achieves its target figure, the payment will be charged to a credit card.

In return, supporters will receive rewards or other incentives such as limited edition gifts or products depending on the ceiling amount.

The website will charge a fee of 5% of the total amount of funding for each project. There is no charge if the project fails to achieve the targeted amount.

The portal seeks to raise funds to support ventures in technology, design, food, publishing, movies, art and health care. It will mainly focus on entrepreneurs aged 25 to 30, who have little experience but strong ambition.

Mr Aekkasit found that 4,500 Thais supported Kickstarter, the world's leading crowdsourcing website, pledging US$1 million as part of Kickstarter's $1 billion pledge milestone in March 2014. This group will be the first potential users of the Dreamaker website.

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