Singapore based startup Club Ethis may be the world’s first Shari’ah compliant crowdfunding platform and according to information provided by the portal it is growing fast. Club Ethis is guided by 2 in-house Islamic scholars. Ethis believes it has shown that Islamic Finance, crowdfunding and real estate development are complementary industries and sectors that feed off each other to create short-term, potentially high-return opportunities that are accessibly to the masses.
Launched in March of 2014, Ethis has surpassed $1 million in funding in less than a year. Club Ethis is a real estate & business crowdfunding platform that is targeting the market in Indonesia (apparently one of the top real estate markets in SE Asia), one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. This is just a start though as their ambitions are targeting the entire SE Asia market.
The stated mission of the funding portal is:
To develop a structured community funding ecosystem that is ethical and sustainable so as to provide a high yielding impact investments for members and equity funding for businesses and real estate developments leading to inclusive economic growth and external benefits to society.
Club Ethis shared in a recent report they have over 500 “members” from 11 countries including; Singapore, Australia, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, UAE, UK and the USA. Transactions on the platform have topped S$ 1.3 million.
Club Ethis has funded 11 companies to date. Two real estate projects have been completed with two projects funding now. A “condotel” project in Indonesia raised S$ 260,000. One of the projects crowdfunding now is a villa resort in Bali seeking a raise of S$ 1.9 million.
Having grown rapidly in the past 9 months mainly from organic outreach and social media, Ethis believes things are just getting started. The report states that they believe they are well positioned to be the gateway for international crowdfunding across South East Asia.
