In an Australian first, a clean technology crowd-funding platform has been launched to support the growing cleantech sector in the country.
The CleantechFundr platform will work on a donation and reward based system, where any interested party can create a Campaign, with a duration up to 90 days, and offer rewards based on tiers of donations, five dollars to $1000, from supporters.
Founder Susan Fitzpatrick-Napier says projects can be funded up to $200,000 and will attract funding from Australia and overseas.
Fitzpatrick-Napier says CleantechFundr has the potential “to attract funds from around the region and the world, directly to Australia’s clean technology industry”.
Fitzpatrick-Napier, a long-time public relations and media specialist in the clean tech space in Asia, USA and Australia has seen first hand the challenges faced by clean technology companies in Australia.
“We hope that CleantechFundr can help fill the funding gap between disruptive and game changing ideas and prototypes, and then support commercialisation efforts.”
CleantechFundr follows other successful crowd-funding organisations such as Australia’s Pozible, and US-based Kickstarter and Indigogo. It comes after the Climate Council, an organisation led by Tim Flannery, raised $1 million from Australians after funding for the Climate Commission was pulled by the new government.
Fitzpatrick-Napier said CleantechFundr offers a niche platform as compared with the other crowd-funding sites, which tend to support a diverse range of projects. “We want CleantechFundr to be the place the general public, friends and family, investors, and industry leaders click on to see the latest in cleantech innovation that they can support.”
The CleantechFundr system allows users to log in and create their own Campaigns with specifics on how, what, when and where the money raised will be spent. CleantechFundr urges Campaign owners to be creative and fun with rewards they give to supporters. Suggested rewards include social media shout-outs, supporter credits on websites, products or sites, and merchandise with logos.
