“Crowdfunding: Without the crowd, there’s no funds.”
When we mention the word – Crowdfunding, first thing that comes to people’s mind is about social movement whereby people are gathered to raise funds for a particular purpose. Indeed, in fact, Crowdfunding covers a wide segment from product, donation, equity to peer-to-peer lending, and of course, real estate. This brought us to CoAssets, South East Asia’s first Real Estate Crowdfunding platform whereby they connect opportunity providers such as property developers, agents, and owners with investors for real estate opportunities.
When asked about the source of idea that starts CoAssets, Getty Goh, Chief Executive Officer and founder of CoAssets shared:
“When seeking for funding, if you are a big guy that is looking for hundreds of million. It is not a problem, there are many established institutions prepared to give you that loan. If you are a small guy looking for less than a million, there are banks. But there is a twilight zone between 1-5 million. It is too big for the small guys and too small for the big guys. Hence, there are many deals that don’t happen at 1-5 million range.”
With that in mind, CoAssets, being the man in the center between the opportunity providers and investors, aims to leverage technology in hope to help the system or the market to be more transparent and give people the resources that they need to make their decision.
When questioned about how CoAssets make money, Dr Seh Huan Kiat, Chief Technical Officer and Founder of CoAssets shared that CoAssets charge a service fee on developer’s side. Apart from that, they have many other channels, one of which is the magazine that has recently established (See the press release: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/12/60347-se-asia-real-estate-platform-coassets-will-launch-crowdfunders-magazine/). They have received many questions regarding about why would an online company came out with the magazine. “People don’t want to go online and invest. They want to see the physical products so we have magazine and we organise events to cater to their needs”, said Dr Seh.
Getty Goh shared that they are fortunate to be in the space whereby they have many partners that they work with, hence, it is not that difficult for them to get attention for their own deals and deals that come on their site. A case in point, one of the first Singapore’s crowdfunded martial arts action comedy movie, came to CoAssets and use one of our channels to get the words out on the street (See their 1-min trailer: http://magazine.coassets.com/2015/02/09/impossible-1-minute-trailer/).
“It is not about real estate, it is about making dreams come true.”
Want to know more about where are their chief developments and what should the investors need to know before they come on board, you can click the above video for the full interview on 93.8FM Breakfast Club.
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This article is written by the Crowdfunders Editorial Team. Crowdfunders.Asia is Asia’s leading portal on crowdfunding, property, start-up and business related news operate CoAssets.com. CoAssets.com is South East Asia’s first real estate crowdfunding site. If you wish to contribute your story, you may write to [email protected].