Friday, October 2, 2015

Crowdfunding is an alternative way to launch projects but … – SAPO Tek

The campaign was launched by the Polar Group, University of Lisbon, for over 15 years engaged in a project which monitors the effects of climate change on deglaciadas areas of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Arctic.

The group appealed to crowdfunding to get buy a drone and collect quality images, a part of the world where it is expensive and difficult to do so through more conventional means such as the helicopter.

The idea was to speed up the survey detailed in the region and have the means to collect aerial photography great detail and move faster in the ongoing research. And he got up. 3102 supporters contributed 21,917 euros for the mission, exceeding the objectives set at 10%.

Gonçalo Vieira, associate professor in IGOT-ULisboa and researcher at CEG in physical geography of the polar regions, was the one who had the idea campaign and who coordinated every effort to ensure its success. It admits that the process was more complicated than expected, because it required a large involvement of the team in constant promotion, from television to the Internet.

The use of crowdfunding was a former researcher idea, which decided to make when he had knowledge of the launch of a drone with features tailored to project needs. The complexity of conventional financing processes for research and the limited funds and disputed gave the boost that, and the group took the 3D Antarctica to PPL campaign.

The drone was purchased and helped as planned mission in Antarctica, but also opened doors to new projects in countries such as Argentina and Cape Verde. It is also used in the teaching component, in the universe of the University of Lisbon, where the IGOT -. Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning is inserted

Portuguese crowdfunding success goes little by technology

The 3D Antarctic campaign used the technology as a means to an end and is essentially why it is in the category. It does not set out to develop a product or technological service, a universe where it is clearly more difficult to tell successful stories in the national use of crowdfunding. Especially if we seek projects that in addition to raising the funds as proposed, have been implemented and remain in the market.

The two most emblematic campaigns feature the crowdfunding held by Portuguese technology companies, are evidence of that. Were launched by subsidiaries of the same group, YDreams, and both chose international platforms.

The Ynvisible led to modular platform Printoo to Kickstarter and needed only 72 hours to collect the $ 20,000 order. Ended the campaign with more than $ 80 000 and 560 supporters.

The pre-sales of the modules that make up the Printoo began to be planned for September 2014, five months after the campaign, but the term does not materialized because there was need to improve the concept, explained to Manuel TeK House, the company’s new product manager, in January this year. The deadline was set for March 2015.

On the Site store the date of Hohe lists the components of Printoo available for pre-booking, but still there is the indication from July to August as estimated dates for deliveries. On Twitter profile there is news of the project since May.

Ziphius also born in the YDreams universe. The water drone of Azorean went to Kickstarter in 2013 and raised $ 127,000, allocated for nearly 500 supporters. Early estimates indicated a launch to March 2014 were reviewed several times because the project has proved more complex than anticipated, explained the CEO Edmundo Nobre at the time. The last statement published on the site also shows August 2015 with release date.

Could not speak or with Azorean or with Ynvisible this time, but it is public that YDreams is in recovery process, situation that is reflected in all activities of the group.

a different scale and with more modest funding volumes, are among the more projects funded in national crowdfunding platforms the Onframe, which apparently no longer exists, or Queepix that failed to materialize and the money raised was returned to the supporters.

The Queepix raised about 2,500 euros to create a platform that would help simplify and organize the sharing of saved times format digital. The Onframe raised 10,200 euros to develop an online service that give back to the role the photos online store. Started functioning in the year that carried out the campaign, but this time the site is off with a message that promises to short a comeback.

In fact all these projects have in common the fact that they are little newer. They took place between 2013 and 2014, but the fact is that after that there are few relevant examples (and with good results), which in technology have taken crowdfunding party to hit the market. There are some examples, such as the Sebas, who is now World Class Notes, but of smaller size.

A more recent example is the Game Studio 78, who twice turned to crowdfunding platforms ( Kickstarter and Indiegogo) to finance the development of Hush game without success. The northern company eventually find alternatives to carry forward the idea and has already launched the game.

The strengths of the crowdfunding areas in Portugal have proved other and maintained consistency. The arts take pride of place in this universe, which until now has been dominated by the model of collaborative funding in exchange for rewards. The numbers of the PPL, the main national gender platform, put music on top of the table on number of funded projects and the volume of raised funding:. 260,000 euros for 136 projects

The books are second strongest area of ​​the PPL (with 121 projects) and a growing number of authors to resort to crowdfunding to get publish their work. The theater, entrepreneurship and sport are areas that follow.

With the new legislation coming to the land sector adjusts to new activity forms of crowdfunding as the loan and the transfer of capital , a diversity that can increase the companies to such instruments.

Cristina A. Ferreira

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