A new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and The Crowdfunding Centre has revealed that women in the Middle East are better at securing crowdfunding than men. The analysis covered 450,000 seed crowdfunding campaigns from nine of the leading global platforms in 2015 and 2016. The researchers analyzed 245 campaigns in the Middle East. While more men chose to crowd-fund their ventures, 10 % of women in the region managed to reach their targets compared to 6 % of men, a study by Women Unbound: “Unleashing female entrepreneurial potential” found out.
According to the research, in the UAE itself, two out of 125 male-led campaigns were successful at a 1.6% success rate, compared to three successes for 21 female-led projects at a 14.3% success rate. Globally speaking, women were 32 % more successful than men at achieving their target. The study also found out that the average pledged amounts for female-led projects int he region was 29% then male-led campaigns.
Stuart Scoular, a partner at PwC Middle East Financial Services commented:
“Even though crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending are still a relative novelty in the region, we expect to see an increase in their adoption as alternative sources of financing as the entrepreneurship landscape of the region matures with much of that growth being led by women.”
According to Scoular, there was still room for greater progress. The report highlighted that 63 campaigns raised over USD 1 million. However, only seven out of 63 were led by women.
Philip Bahoshy, the CEO, and the founder of Magnitt, a Dubai-based website focused on entrepreneurs and investors, commented that the data was promising for the local women, although the crowdfunding industry in the region was still new. Bahoshy also pointed out that the sector is still facing challenges. According to him, the main barriers include educating angel investors on putting their money into start-ups, making users comfortable with investing online, setting-up a base of young companies using crowdfunding campaigns.
Erkki Aaltonen, the executive director at startAD, NYU Abu Dhabi commented that crowdfunding platforms offered excellent opportunities for both male and female entrepreneurs to test and validate the interest in their business before the actual sales started. Aaltonen added that a little bit more clarity in the regulation around crowdfunding would help.