Not only that, Kickstarter‘s launch will give makers in the two Asian countries the opportunity to raise funds from backers around the world in Singapore and Hong Kong dollars and use the two countries’ local banking and business details for their crowdfunding campaigns.
Advertisement
In a blog post on the Kickstarter website, Sean Leow, who helps support Kickstarter’s worldwide community, said that the localised platforms will birth more innovative projects from this part of the world for backers around the world to support.
As a result, entrepreneurs in Singapore or Hong Kong had to co-operate with overseas partners if they wanted their ideas on the website.
By late Wednesday, new projects in Hong Kong and Singapore were seeking funding on the site, including a self-watering indoor planter, invented by a 13-year-old boy, which had attracted 183 backers. “With this in mind, we have seen that the total costs incurred by a business traveller in the region are highest in Hong Kong”.
For now, users will not be able to select which currency in which to list their project.
But that’s not to say that Singapore’s creators and collaborators will be getting their hands on the crowdfunding platform for the first time ever. Similar to any project not listed in US dollars, when looking at project pages, backers based in the USA will see the project’s goal displayed in USD.
As at Thursday, GIY Stick has raised S$10,769 from 305 backers, with another 28 days to reach its S$20,000 target. It has 29 days to go to hit its goal of S$55,000. As per Kickstarter, they are one of the biggest segments of backers globally.
Advertisement
AICO Technologies’ Smart Egg universal remote and Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, a role-playing game (RPG) by Witching Hour Studios, are some examples of locally-produced projects in Singapore that have been funded via Kickstarter means. “Proxies in Singapore will be able to help bespoke makers and designers from the region raise funding, with the hope of even reaching to the United States market”.
