Chinese crowdfunding platform KaiStart announced this week they had closed on a Series “A+” funding round led by Matrix Partners and Vision Capital. At the end of 2015, KaiStart had revealed it had raised $5.2 million from a broad group of investors including; Incapital, Meridian Capital China, Tipping Point Partners, Zhejiang Wenchuang Group and Jiusui Capital. The new founding was described as unique by Technode as two prominent investors in China tech particapted in the funding round; Xu Chuansheg and Wu Yongming. Xu Chuansheg from Matrix led investments in Baidu. Wu Yongming was one of the first board members of Alibaba. The pair are now board members of KaiStart.
While most Chinese rewards-based crowdfunding platforms are pretail type services, KaiStart is taking a softer approach to act as a catalyst for “passion projects”. The pitch videos are mini-documentaries highlighting projects of the heart to help people accomplish projects that are personalized projects.
KaiStart founder Xu Jianjun stated the addition of the two big names in tech investing would help them accomplish their objective of reaching 4 million users.
