After five years of operation, Wujudkan cited inability to generate income as the reason of their shut down

Indonesian crowdfunding platform for creative projects Wujudkan announced yesterday that is going to shut down its business, according to an official statement on the platform’s blog.

Citing March 31 as the last day of the plaform’s operation, Wujudkan Founder and CEO Mandy Marahimin wrote that the company’s inability to generate income through the campaigns that it successfully funded is the main reason why they decided to end it.

“… We need to face the reality that in the past five years, the number of Creation [campaigns] that have successfully secured their funding never reached more than 12 per cent. This is a number that, for us, is too small,” she said.

“This number becomes important because Wujudkan is not a funding agency. Wujudkan is a business entity. The number becomes important because the operational costs are too much to bear,” she added.

The startup will gradually shut down its platform by not accepting new campaigns starting February 1, when the announcement was made.

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Wujudkan also stated that it is going to send a static page to every campaigners on its site on March 31, so that the campaigner can post it on their own blog or server. It will also move the Wujudkan blog into a WordPress site so that users can continue to access articles on crowdfunding tips.

Despite the end, Marahimin stated that the team continues to believe that crowdfunding is one of the best solutions to fund projects in the creative industry, though Wujudkan “has to be realistic.”

“We hope that you will never stop to crowdfund. At the moment there are many crowdfunding platforms operating that can accommodate your needs,” she said.

Wujudkan is one of the oldest crowdfunding platforms in Indonesia, alongside KitaBisa.

In an interview with e27, KitaBisa CEO Alfatih Timur stated that in their early days, KitaBisa used to accommodate a greater portion of crowdfunding campaigns for creative industry projects. But the startup learned that charity projects tend to be more popular with the Indonesian public.

“At first we forbade users to campaign for personal causes, such as fundraising for a sick friend. We wanted to put emphasis on innovative projects. But, then it turned out that personal causes are the fastest to reach its target,” Timur said.

Creative industry projects now account for only a portion of KitaBisa’s listed campaigns.

There is also WeCare.id which focusses on healthcare projects.

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Image Credit: tomsickova / 123RF Stock Photo

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