SokoText has emerged as the winner of the Nailab start-up crowd funding boot camp, coveting the first prize of Ksh 300,000. Soko Text is a Kenyan start-up tackling food insecurity in the urban slums through an sms service that is helping the small-scale vegetable retailers also known as “mama mbogas” aggregate daily orders.
The boot camp brought together 19 ventures in different spheres where they had to develop strong crowdfunding campaigns, understanding the essence of crowdfunding as a significant alternative source of start-up capital.
The boot camp was organised by Nailab, one of Kenya’s leading business incubators in partnership with 1%Club, a Netherlands based crowdfunding venture, and Accenture a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.
Speaking during the award ceremony, Nailab CEO Sam Gichuru highlighted that as an entrepreneur himself, he experienced struggles in getting the needed start up capital.
“There are several sources of startup capital. There is bootstrapping, a situation where an entrepreneur attempts to found and build a company from personal finances or from the operating revenues of the new company, then there are angel investors, venture capitalists and credit facilities from financial institutions”, said Mr. Gichuru. He added, “Crowdfunding is a channel that has been scarcely exploited by many entrepreneurs and has a lot of potential as an entrepreneur does not have to give up equity or accumulate any debt”
The Crowdfunding concept has gained a lot of traction in the west in the last few years with platforms like 1%Club expanding their capacity to more enterprises from emerging and developed markets. “ Our greatest desire is to make great ideas possible and help make small ideas big through facilitating their funding on our platform” said Anna Chojnacka, one of the founders at 1%Club.“ I am impressed at the quality of solutions that have been showcased and the entrepreneurs quick adoption of the crowdfunding concept.”
According to the founding CEO of SokoText, Mr. Suraj Gudka, the funds will aid in making their first Soko shop operational and go a long way in expanding and bettering the startup’s operations. “As an entrepreneur, I am very grateful for this opportunity and the chance to get to understand how crowdfunding operates and how I can maximize its benefits for the growth of the venture”, said Mr. Gudka.
The 1st runner up, Keja Hunt an online property-listing platform and 2nd runner up Young Freddie, a young shoe fashion designer who uses recyclable material, took home Ksh. 90,000 and Ksh. 60,000 respectively.
