A new social networking platform created by South Africans seven months ago - Gather Online - has gathered 30 000 users in its brief history.
The social networking platform has now opened a crowdfunding round, which it believes will help take things to the next level by ramping up its global marketing strategy.
According to Mark Bryson, COO of Gather Online in SA, with the crowdfunding round, Gather Online is looking to raise between AUD400 000 (R4.1 million) and AUD1.2 million (R12.5 million).
Gather Online was launched in Australia and SA, attempting to steal market share from established players like Facebook and LinkedIn.
Founded by South Africans, Gather Online was launched after being in incubation for the past couple of years. The original idea came from South African-born David Price, who is group CEO, and now based in Australia.
The original idea for a new kind of social discovery and messaging platform came after the realisation there was a huge gap in discovering new contacts and friends through the established social media and networks.
"In just seven months, we already have over 30 000 users and more than 400 000 unique visitors to the site," says Bryson.
The social network has also launched a mobile application available on iOS and Android.
"Having developed and launched both our Web site and native apps, after this funding round, our attention will turn to marketing Gather Online and expanding our user base globally," Bryson adds.
"We have acquired the bulk of our users through light marketing efforts through social media. Most of our efforts, to date, have been spent on development and optimisation of the network, so we are very excited that we can now shift our focus to marketing and growing our brand.
"We have been pleasantly surprised by the breadth of interest we have received to date. We have seen natural growth in Australian, South African and US subscribers but we have also seen decent interest from places like Pakistan and India," he concludes.
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