Our first week of crowdfunding was the ride we had hoped for – we reached our first week goal of raising $70k!
We have now set stretch goals for the campaign. You can read about them here. It would be AMAZING if we could raise $250k by December 8. That’s half of the budget we need to keep churning this startup movement at full swing!
Watching the donations roll in this week has been fascinating. Here are some statistics we thought you’d enjoy:
- $75k contributed so far on Indiegogo
- $34k was from previously received pledges
- $41k received in new donations (not previously pledged!)
- 55 countries have contributed
- 75% of donated funds from U.S., 15% from Europe, 10% from MENA
- Donations come from countries as far spread as Botswana, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, and Panama
- 385 donors have contributed
- median amount = $60
- 134 donations of $100 or more
- 16 donations of $1,000 or more
- 2 donations of $10k or higher
- 2.7M people have seen the hashtag #GazaStarts on Twitter
- We’ve already been in Indiegogo’s newsletter and home page!
It did not surprise us that the most funds donated have come from the United States, though we do expect (and hope) that the Arab region will end up donating just as much as the United States in the longer run of the campaign.
What did surprise us was the country that has given the second most. Guess which? Poland! We believe this is not because our director is Polish (she is), but rather, because Poland’s startup sector has grown quickly in the past 10 years. One of our mentors at Startup Weekend Gaza in June of this year was Polish.
A decade ago, Polish people would not have been able to afford to support endeavors around the world, nor would most of them have been interested or engaged in startups. Now tech companies like Hitachi are moving their global headquarters to Krakow, Poland and Google is opening its next Campus in Warsaw. Poland is an example of a country that had no hi-tech sector until recently and is now one of the leading forces in the world. It’s an inspiration for us in Gaza.
Thank you to everyone who has supported so far. Please ask all of your friends to contribute to www.gazastarts.com as soon as they can!
Here we are in the Indiegogo newsletter:
