Latin American platform for Latin Americans, including those living in the US (demonstrated especially by the ‘Create Miami’ campaign). There are other endogenous platforms in the region—in Brazil, for example, which occupies a distinctive position in the south of the continent, especially because of its language, and celebrates this distinction beyond the language itself through a refusal of the North American model. Brazil is home to companies like Catarse, Kickante and Queremos, which was later adapted to the US under the name Wedemand—with \$900,000 in support from an English investment fund, Talis Capital. Most endogenous Latin American platforms were launched using their own money, often that of their founders, who are mainly urban youth from the upper 5% of the population. The endogenous platforms with the greatest growth are those specializing in loans, such as Afluenta in Argentina and Kubo Financiero in Mexico. (When we interviewed the latter’s CEO, it was the only platform to be regulated, holding a bank licence granted by the government; a law has since been passed modelled on the US Jobs Act.) These are also the platforms most exposed (and disposed) to foreign investment—particularly American capital, which counts on and shares in their rapid growth.
Endogenous platforms have also emerged in West Africa. But their level of activity remains low, and they too are being supported by large Western companies or banks like Société Générale, which has developed incubators and various other projects in the region, often in partnership with national public agencies and international organizations. Almost all these initiatives stem from the wider emergence of fintech and its players—either banks and banking-related (Waalam is a secondary spinof of a financial assets consultancy), or telecoms and telecom-related (Orange, Paydunya, Intouch). Crowdfunding is seen as a set of services that can be ofered to users, but whose ‘value added remains to be proven—something evident in an interview with an executive at Orange:
We’re looking at crowdfunding tools. Through the Orange Digital Venture fund, Orange has invested in a player that is the French and European leader, KissKissBankBank, which has three types of sites [...] and obviously they have some interest in Africa, which is currently looking at everything that is emerging right now. No one knows the truth in this area, and we don’t have a clear idea of the dynamics of the market, what the uptake will be […]. We’re going to launch the first platforms, and what interests us is the lessons we can learn from the experience.
We encounter both a keen interest and a wait-and-see attitude on the part of Western players in crowdfunding, with large conglomerates moving their pawns and cautiously observing the developments and experiments that are underway. We find the same slow wait-and-see attitude on the part of national economic players, as illustrated by an interview with a representative of Intouch, a ‘mobile money’ aggregator solution, working on a white label basis for the
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