Scattered in small workshops throughout Cairo, some micro-entrepreneurs have long struggled to find customers to purchase wares such as mechanical sunshades, clay pottery coolers and printing presses. Now some of them are turning to the crowd-funding site Yomken, which launched in Egypt in October, to connect with individual investors, scientists and research centres willing to either pre-purchase industrial goods or collaborate on design improvements.
“In Egypt, micro-entrepreneurs are facing intense competition from China and Asian borders, and there is no support system [for] the bottom of the economic pyramid,” says Tamer Taha, chief executive of Yomken.
Crowd-funding sites act as middlemen between investors and entrepreneurs. The biggest players — Kickstarter and Indiegogo — have become known for some of the quirkier products that people have pitched on their sites, including watches made out of old iPod Nanos that have raised millions of dollars over different stages of development.
More home-grown ventures are now cropping up in the Middle East and North Africa to cater specifically to Arabs. Yomken, Aflamnah and Flooosy have each recently launched in this region, while another potential player — Mawwell — appears ready to join the fray.
“This trend is real, it’s growing and it’s a movement we should all take notice of,” says Jonathan Axtell, program director at The Hub Bay Area, a group that helps entrepreneurs in the United States and is opening an office in Dubai.
Globally, there are now more than 450 crowd-funding platforms in operation. They are projected to raise a total of $6.2bn in funds mostly for entrepreneurs and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) next year, which is up from $1.6bn in 2009, according to data from the research firm Gartner.