Iran’s premier business accelerator program has announced that one of its first batch of startups is now in full swing. Today’s business highlight 2nate (pronounced donate in Persian), is a unique startup concept which is in its first round of mentoring. As part of the business accelerator program, new budding entrepreneurs are offered an initial fund called “seed funding” which starts their business. The Avatech accelerator also mentors the new business owners to help them avoid mistakes.
2nate’s entirely indigenous platform allows people to donate to worthy causes. The idea works like this: a person goes to the 2nate website and proposes a campaign – in this case let’s say palliative care funding – then the person shares the campaign with their friends and families and in theory with a good enough campaign it could go viral.
Similar to Paypal’s “Donate tab” or the Justgiving.com charity site, the website’s owner Mohi Sansinel, hopes that through this new crowd funding platform good causes will get more airtime amongst the general populous.
The site as so far has raised funds of over 62 million rials (nearly $1,800 at market exchange rate) supporting over 264 worthy causes. It has currently over 1,000 people generating the funds.
The website states it is not a charity, however it works to support and in conjunction with many charities. 2nate states that its pages work in conjunction with independent auditors to keep accounts and figures above board. The company also states that it is committed to meet its corporate social responsibility and give back to the community in which it works with.
Currently, no other website offers this kind of service but if financial sanctions against Iran were to be lifted in the short term the company could face stiff competition from international organizations which may enter the local online business market.
