Australia-based crowdfunding site Pozible was co-founded by Alan Crabbe, an Irish, and Rick Chen, a Chinese, in 2010. Now the site has landed in the home country of one of the founders, China, to help Chinese projects reach audiences outside China. Pozible said they had had backers for the 6,000+ projects featured on the site from 104 countries or regions.
While the service is widely used by Australian arts community to raise funding, Pozible’s focus in China is smart hardware. No wonder given the rise of maker movement in China and zealous backers around the world.
But the reason that Pozible didn’t move to China earlier, according to co-founder Rick Chen, was, unlike the wild times of Shanzhan products — low-quality, cheap, knockoff electronics by Chinese manufacturers, some well-designed and -made smart hardware products currently are emerging in China. Also, those new gadgets have wide appeal in the rest of the world.
There have been several Chinese projects on Kickstarter. I heard that some hired third parties to do what they cannot or are not good at, writing up project descriptions, shooting videos, promoting projects, etc. Some did so for they feel they are with limited English proficiency while some believe those third parties know more about how to appeal English-speaking audiences.
What Pozible offers Chinese makers ranges from payment methods, international public relations to editing. Pozible transfers funding, received in USD through a variety of global online payment services, in RMB to project owners’ local Chinese bank accounts; Payments from local backers will go to their Alipay accounts — The site, of course, charges payments processing fess accordingly.
Some cool made-in-China projects have landed on Pozible, including a futuristic robot and a fitness tracking wristband.
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