South African crowdfunding platform Thundafund has today launched community fundraising sister site Ripple, as it looks to allow the main site to focus on raising money for tech and performance projects.
Disrupt Africa broke the news in December that Thundafund, which launched in June 2013, and has thus far raised more than ZAR3.5 million (US$300,000) in crowdfunded money, was to launch Ripple.
The goal of launching the new sister site is to separate community crowdfunding from Thundafund itself, with founder Patrick Schofield telling Disrupt Africa the company hopes to present Thundafund as a platform on which tech entrepreneurs can raise cash.
“The tech becomes really important for us and the other side is performance – theatre, music, dances, all of that stuff,” he said.
“Ripple has a pipeline three times the size of Thundafund’s,” he said. “But that’s because a lot of people are doing really cool stuff in the community space in South Africa.”
Ripple campaigns have deadlines in the same way campaigns on Thundafund do, but organisations can opt for open-ended profiles allowing donations to them at any point. The percentage taken by the company of any money raised is also lower on Ripple.
