The Platform Is Live!
After months of hard work from everyone involved in the project we are delighted to announce that our platform is live. If you head to acornhub.ai you’ll be able to see the Beta version of our platform complete with it’s first projects (more on this later).
At the AcornHub there’s a whole host of features to help founders on their crowdfunding journey. From our extensive education resources, where founders can arm themselves with all the knowledge they need to succeed, to our in-platform analytics where users can hook up their social profiles and gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns.
We’ve over 100 entrepreneurs in our “Virtual Accelerator”, where they are using a mix of 1–2–1 support, the education centre and our lean business canvas to prepare themselves for their upcoming crowdfunds. We’ve got over 30 projects at the “Ready to go” stage where we’ve reviewed their project and will be able to on-board their campaigns into the crowdfunding section of the site.
A key part of any crowdfunding campaign is securing the first 30% of the raise before going public with the campaign. This has proven again and again to be a critical success factor and something we impress upon all of our founders. This is why we spend so long evaluating founders and projects before allowing them to start collecting funds on the platform. Some of the projects you see may be at this stage already and others will have some work to do before they get there, but you will still be able to read about their project as they are growing their crowd ahead of the raise.
The 30 or so projects we have in the “ready to go” group are at different stages, some are able to go onto platform straight away and start the crowdfund soon and others might have to do a bit more before going public. So expect to see these projects released in tranches over the coming days and weeks. This will give the founders the time they need to make their projects a success.
Further great news is that there is such variety in the projects who have applied. We’ve the full range from existing businesses looking to scale, such as accounting software for SME’s in India or leather goods from Kenya to novel footwear solutions at the prototype stage from Russia. We’ve also got innovative solutions to world problems; such as water accessibility and transportation from a UK based entrepreneur with a focus on developing countries, storage solutions for overcrowded cities from a London based founder and Aquaponics products from a Canadian founder.
Most of the above projects are commercially orientated but we also have a number of good cause projects on the platform and all from a diverse number of countries from around the world. This great scope of projects is a delight to us as it is exactly what we’ve set out to do at Acorn from the beginning; bringing access to crowdfunding for all — and this is just the start.
It’s important to remember that our platform is currently in Beta and despite being packed full of functionality isn’t the finished article yet. Next to come is our Marketplace followed by our transparency layer.
For now have a look around the site, become a member, access the resources and enjoy the projects as they start to come onto the platform. There won’t be a lot to begin with as we have a responsibility to these founders to only let them start when ready but as the next few weeks go by you’ll see this growing and growing as we approve more projects from the virtual accelerator. The initial projects are there to give you a flavour of what’s to come with more added over the coming days and weeks.
It’s been an incredible journey to get us this far but this is just the beginning. Enjoy the platform as it continues to grow and evolve over the coming weeks and months.
