Uprise Africa calls on funders to co-invest with crowdfunding platform

SA equity crowdfunding platform Uprise.Africa is calling on venture capital funds and other funders to co-invest with individual investors on its platform.

The call follows the close of its third and highly successful Intergreatme campaign last Thursday (30 May), in which the regtech startup raised a record R32-million against a targeted raise of R24-million (see this story and this one), all in just days.

Uprise.Africa CEO Tabassum Qadir told Ventureburn yesterday that the call for interest is aimed at gauging whether funders — including venture capital (VC) funds, development finance institutions and listed entities — are keen to use the platform to provide finance and strategic guidance to startups and small businesses.

Uprise.Africa says the crowdfunding platform will serve as a channel to distribute the finance, increase public exposure and give rise to what it calls an “army of ambassadors” for those firms funded through the platform (see this opinion piece by Qadir in which she explains more about how VCs can work with crowdfunding platforms).

Uprise.Africa has issued a call for interest to funders keen to use the platform to provide finance and strategic guidance to startups

Qadir said the idea is that co-funding partners will participate regularly in campaigns and that Uprise.Africa will allow such partners to participate exclusively in any raise, for the first two weeks of any campaign, before it goes public for a further 60 days.

In total, the crowdfunding organisations aims to run campaigns for no more than 90 days.

Qadir argues that by sharing the investment ticket, VCs and other funders can together with crowdfunding platforms can leverage each other’s strengths and create a more significant impact in the South African small business landscape.

She also revealed that the organisation is looking at the legalities of how Section 12J VC funds can participate in the platform. This is promising as investors that participate in Section 12J funds are able to offset such an investment from their taxable income.

Co-funding partners interested in using Uprise.Africa to provide finance and strategic guidance to small businesses can apply to do so on this form.

Read more: Time is right for VCs, equity crowdfunding platforms to collaborate [Opinion]

Featured image: Intergreatme CEO and co-founder Luke Warner at the launch of the startup’s Uprise.Africa funding campaign last month (Facebook)