Canada’s largest crowdfunding platform is coming to your television screens.
Fundrazr, the Vancouver-based global crowdfunding platform that has raised over $33M, was selected as the preferred fundraising platform for the first season of upcoming TV series, the Crowd Funder show, which launches September 22nd on FOX affiliate WUTV.
CEO Daryl Hatton said called the selection a “vote of confidence” for his platform, which helps startups hit targeted funding goals through the help of anyone with internet access and a credit card. “The reach of TV, combined with the show’s high value sponsor perks and the FundRazr platform, promise to break new ground in the industry.”
Besides the FounderFuel reality show that depicted the accelerator program’s second cohort through the eyes of two of its teams, there hasn’t been much television coverage for Canadian startups. While FounderFuel’s reality show, called “Ça passe ou ça casse!” (“Make it or Break It”) never garnered a high viewership- partly because its creators wanted the show to be more than 50 percent french- it was very well received from those who viewed it.
Now Fundrazr is set to take Canadian startups in television to a new level. The new half-hour TV show is produced by Merton Park Film Studios of Toronto and is being dubbed as the first of its kind. Each episode will focus on six or seven inspiring projects that will provide audience members with insight into the project, thereby giving campaigners extra exposure and hopefully, an added financial boost.
Jordan Whelan, Merton’s Executive Producer said “the FundRazr platform has some important features, such as increased security and advanced social media technology, which provide his show participants with benefits that didn’t seem to be available from other companies.”
The crowd funding industry has only been around in a prominent way for a few years, but Hatton and FundRazr “are considered pioneering innovators” in an industry where approximately 400 active platforms compete for a finite number of viable projects.
Hatton expects the TV Show relationship to vault FundRazr’s business volume significantly as it battles with larger rivals Indiegogo and Kickstarter for the burgeoning crowdfunding market.
The platform will need all the help it can get though, especially after Kickstarter’s foray into Canada three days ago. Kickstarter has had over 48,000 backers pledge more than $778 million dollars. The platform sees on average over 3,500 projects live at any given time and has been raising one million dollars a day for the past year and a half.
Canadians have funded over $28 million dollars to projects on Kickstarter since its launch in 2009. This is almost a dollar per Canadian citizen.
FundRazr, meanwhile, was recently voted the BCTIA Most Promising Startup Winner and was also ranked the 30th fastest growing Canadian company in PROFIT Magazine’s Hot 50 ranking.
