Cashing in on crowds

Famous sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo from the US, or Demohour and Dreamore from China, have helped millions of people and companies raise funds.

Kickstarter, for example, raised more than $480 million in 2013 and helped 3 million people from 214 countries contribute funds for 19,911 projects.

Demohour, founded in April 2011, is one of the best-known Chinese crowdfunding sites with 146 successful projects in 2013. Most of the backers are young people with no shortage of creativity and passion.

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Dreamore is another successful example. It was founded in September 2011 and now has more than 500 projects, 40 of which have been successfully funded.

The growing use of crowdfunding in the region has led to a number of local sites popping up. Several such sites have emerged in Singapore.One of the most popular is Crowdonomic.

Other major crowdfunding sites include Wujudkan and KitaBisa in Indonesia, ArtisteConnect in the Philippines, pitchIN in Malaysia, Perdmuak in Thailand, ZecZec in Taiwan and Nboon in South Korea.

Besides the domestic platforms, there are 64 projects from the Chinese mainland on one of the most visited global crowdfunding sites, Indiegogo. There are another 54 projects from Hong Kong.

As one of the financial centers in Asia, Hong Kong has its own group of crowdfunding platforms tailored for equity, real estate and loans among other things.

"I believe Hong Kong, as the Asian financial center, has its advantages in equity crowdfunding," says Charlie Sheng, a technology blogger who has worked with many crowdfunding companies in the special administration region. "Investors and customers are more confident in doing financial investments here than in any other type of investing."

Bigcolors, a Hong Kong crowdfunding site founded in January, aims to change the way people trade. It is the world's first exchange-trading platform for startup companies. It allows people to trade stocks in startup companies and realize their value faster than the normal 24 to 28 months after the initial investment.

Crowdbaron is a Hong Kong-based international real estate crowdfunding company. It creates profit-sharing opportunities in international property. Whenever a project is sold, the backers gain a share in the profits.

There are fewer technology or art-focused crowdfunding sites in Hong Kong compared with financial ones.

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