From Archives: Woomentum launches Asia’s first women’s crowdfunding platform

Founder of Woomentum, Mouna Aouri Langendorf, wants to empower women-led startups through crowdfunding and community support

Editor’s Note: Here’s a story from our archives we feel is relevant even today and deserves your attention.

Singapore-based women entrepreneur community platform, Woomentum, announced yesterday that it has launched its crowdfunding platform, Woomentum Fund, which is purportedly the first women-centric crowdfunding platform in Asia.

In 2014, founder of Woomentum, Mouna Aouri Langendorf, who spent 13 years building bridges in Africa and Asia, decided that she wanted to build another kind of bridge – a metaphorical one; one that connects women entrepreneurs to investors and the wider entrepreneurial community.

e27 chatted with Mouna to find out about her goals and her motivations behind launching Woomentum.

What was the impetus behind creating Woomentum?

When I became a mother, I found out that having to balance being a mother and a professional without compromising on both responsibilities was a very challenging endeavour.

Also Read: Rewards-based vs equity crowdfunding — what works better?

While I never believed that gender should be a limitation for professional life, the truth is, women do have gender-specific challenges. I saw that many other women entrepreneurs out there faced the same challenges. That motivated me to create a platform that could lend support to them, a model similar to Quora, but focussed on giving women entrepreneurs easy access to professional advice and mentoring.

Why did you launch Woomentum.Fund?

Founder of Woomentum, Mouna Aouri Langendorf

With the launch of Woomentum.Fund, which is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform similar to Kickstarter, women entrepreneurs will be able to get access to early-stage funding. I chose reward-based crowdfunding because it is perfect for early stage funding and would help to validate the product and create brand ambassadors.

In the US, research shows when businesses are run by women, they have double the growth rate than their male counterparts, so I think investors are really interested in this. And this opens up a huge economic opportunity for women to succeed in the business field. So what I’m doing here is bringing an economic opportunity and investment opportunity for investors. Essentially Woomentum.Fund can act like a YouTube channel for investors and potential startups, and they can handpick which startups they want to invest in.

What sets Woomentum.Fund apart from other crowdfunding platforms and why should women entrepreneurs choose to use your platform?

Firstly, Wommentum.Fund is really focussed on Asia unlike major crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter. But of course, women entrepreneurs in Asia could always choose Indiegogo.

But here is our key selling point to them – Woomentum is a community for women, we are not just a tool, we are not just a crowdfunding platform. We have a supportive community, mentors, successful female startups and investors that are interested in lending a hand. By leveraging on our platform, you[women entrepreneurs] get attention, you get exposure to investors, you get customised attention to promote your campaign and you are part of community that is willing to support you.

Also Read: [Singapore] Crowdfunding Revolution

Secondly, we have a strong focus on getting feedback and followership to the point that we added several call-to-action options on the campaign pages. The first allows you to contribute funds, the second signs you up on the startups’ updates and the third allows you to submit feedback. Other platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo focusses on only one thing – raising funding, which is not the only thing that entrepreneurs need to succeed.

Any plans to raise funding for your platform?

We are gaining some traction and are ready to raise seed funding which is absolutely necessary for growth. We can’t release many details so all I can say is that we are currently in talks with investors and we hope to raise some funding by the end of the year.

Also Read: Spark Open 2015 to provide crowdfunding opportunities for Filipinos

What are your long-term goals for Woomentum?

We want to raise the five percent of VC funding going to women entrepreneurs to 50 per cent. Ultimately we want to bridge the gap between women entrepreneurs and startups led by men.

The post From Archives: Woomentum launches Asia’s first women’s crowdfunding platform appeared first on e27.