Crowdonomic, the latest crowdfunding site from Singapore, wants to help startups raise money

There’s a new crowdfunding site in town, and it wants to help fellow startups succeed. Singapore-based Crowdonomic, which officially launched today, is kicking off with six projects raising SGD 30k each (USD 24k).

The six startups involved are no strangers to the Singapore ecosystem. There’s FlagAHero, a peer-to-peer task marketplace, iCarsClub, a car lending platform, and QualityTime Lab, a company that develops software to foster family interaction. Crowdonomic aims to eventually expand across Asia.

While funding targets have been fixed, campaigners can still collect the money even if the goals are not met. Like other crowdfunding sites, campaigns must offer incentives if individuals donate above certain thresholds. It charges a 9.5% admin fee based on the final contribution amount. If the funding goal is reached, campaigners will pay only 6.5%.

Crowdonomic is one of many similar platforms that have tried to fill the crowdfunding vacuum in Asia. But while there has been a number of successful campaigns in Indonesia, Japan, and to a lesser extent other countries, these fundraisers are typically in five-figure sums in USD.

So while the company claims to have raised funds from angel investors and venture capital firms — without revealing much details — it’ll need to be smart with its money as it tries to educate the market on this new form of fundraising. There’s no indication if crowdfunding in Asia will ever reach the stratospheric heights of the US market.

Scanning Asia’s crowdfunding landscape, one gets a sense that there are already too many platforms around. Perhaps the market might grow large enough to support all these players, but even then they’ll have to compete with Indiegogo, an international crowdfunding platform that has gained traction in Asia. We’ve already seen the website used by indie cafe The Pigeonhole and a couple of Singapore startups — ISGloves and Innova Technology — to raise money.

I also wonder if seed funding is a dire need among startups in Southeast Asia right now. It seems that across the region, the true deficit lies in the lack of venture capital.

Perhaps crowdfunding platforms can meet that need too, but only if there’s a critical mass of mass market awareness and innovative ideas.