One of MoolaHoop's current campaigns is raising money to support a community in Kenya.
The business world has a gender problem.
Despite the fact that women own 10.6 million businesses in the U.S. and represent 35 percent of startup business owners, they receive a piddling 4.2% of venture capital funding. This means that they tend to be smaller and grow more slowly. MoolaHoop launched a crowdfunding platform for women entrepreneurs today to bridge this gap.
MoolaHoop is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform that that specifically works with women-led businesses looking to raise capital. Selected businesses are featured on the site with a profile telling their story and a fundraising goal, along the lines of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. MoolaHoop aims to go beyond financial support, however, by creating a robust ecosystem dubbed the “Hoop” that helps women leverage their existing social and professional networks, as well as gain access to mentorship, education, and skill training.
“The economic impact that women-owned businesses represent is enormous,” the company said on its site. “MoolaHoop’s core mission is to improve access to capital for women entrepreneurs, helping them attract debt-free funding while building a strong base of supporters for their new venture.”
Crowdfunding sites have gained a tremendous amount of momentum over the past few years and it is estimated that rewards-based crowdfunding will raise $700 million in 2013. Raising venture capital money works for some startups, but not for all. Entrepreneurs that have historically existed on the periphery of the tightly-knit VC network — like women, minorities, hardware companies, and people outside of tech hubs — are finding crowdfunding to be an effective alternative method of financing. Startups initially passed over by VC firms (like Pebble) have raised millions of dollars on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and now a new wave of crowdfunding platforms is emerging that focus on a specific group or vertical.
MoolaHoop is not only focusing on women-led companies, but also those “doing good.” One of the first featured projects is a partnership between BlueAvocado and Open Arms to produce an eco-friendly collection of accessories made using reclaimed materials and sewed by female war survivors. Another project is by a company called LiveWordly which is building a global marketplace for products hand-crafted by women in the developing world. A portion of all sales is donated to a non-profit that supports education within that country.
“We want to make a difference in the world by creating cultural experiences for people here and giving back to the people and places where we are importing from,” said LiveWorldly’s founder Kael Robinson to VentureBeat. “Right now we are trying to get money to employ 30 people in Kenya to make products for us to sell, and we will give a portion of the proceeds to a local school in one of Africa’s worst slums. But currently the way money is given out and investors decide to invest is not ideal.”
Robinson first started working on LiveWorldly 5 years ago after a trip to Brazil. The company has grown and now has a presence all over the world. Its campaign on MoolaHoop strives to raise $25,000 to get this new Kenyan collection off the ground, and invest in future projects.
MoolaHoop was founded by Brenda Bazan and Nancy Hayes. Both women spent years in executive roles at IBM and left to enter the non-profit world.
Filed under: Business, Deals, Entrepreneur, Lifestyle
Rebecca Grant 26 Jul, 2013
enclosure: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/934641_10151591000354648_903868319_n.jpg?w=160
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Source: http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/25/moolahoop-launches-crowdfunding-platform-dedicated-to-women-entrepreneurs/
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