Established businessman, Nick Essame, and young entrepreneur, Martin Ras, launched an exciting new initiative on 1 February 2012, Crowd-funding.co.za.
The idea revolves around the notion of a collective co-operation of people who network and pool their resources together to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. However, Crowd-funding.co.za is different in comparison to the conventional manner of crowd funding, primarily because the start up is identified prior to your pledge and the money is only going to one start up, once off.
Martin Ras, co-founder and operations manager explains that “While there are several venture capitalists currently in South Africa, not a lot of them are focused on providing seed capital. Most of them only invest in companies with a track record, so raising money for a startup is quite a daunting and a time consuming exercise in SA. In addition many of the VC companies have very focused investment criteria’s and Mobile Payments is not a common one.” And so, with this in mind, Martin and Nick decided to set up a front-end to raise capital for their start up.
The startup in question is Ching, a third party payment facilitator that enables merchants to accept Pin based credit and debit card payments via a web or a mobi site. The “Ching solution” makes the opportunity of accepting debit or credit card payments available to any merchant, whether big or small; new or established, and will benefit any business. The security mechanisms that surround the Ching environment also protect the merchant from repudiation based disputes and chargebacks.
Crowd-funding aims to raise R1 million for Ching through pledges made by interested contributors from anywhere between R1000 – 100 000 ending on the 31 March 2012. While April may be the end of Ching‘s donation cycle, the actual launch date is scheduled for some time in June.
Nick Essame brings a lot of experience to the table with more than 25 years in the payments industry with specific focus on the card environment having held positions including Program manager at FNB and Vice president, Business development at Visa. Martin, an aspiring Internet entrepreneur, has been in the sales and marketing environment for 6 years and is currently completing his MBA. The two met when both men were exploring the same idea to develop a mobile payment platform. Martin was doing enquiries about certain functionalities when his email was forwarded to Nick by PASA (Payment Association South Africa). “My first email turned into two then three then four”, says Martin. And so their unique partnership was formed. There are also a few other stakeholders and key strategic partners.
Naturally, a concern of those who pledge is how they can follow where and how their money is being spend. Martin explains, “This is the marvel of expenditures on new startups. The pledgers need to bear in mind that it can go both ways and that they are part of an odyssey which we indent to make a success of. Having said that we know that they are prospective investors and that they want a sense of security. The monies raised will be used for marketing activities, business development and the product launch.
To view the complete executive summary or make a pledge click here.
