BD Venture Ltd, a local venture capital company, has developed a web-based crowd-funding platform to create a perfect match between investors and entrepreneurs.

M Ehsanul Haque, chairman of BD Venture, disclosed this at a programme at the office of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) in Dhaka yesterday. Syed Almas Kabir, president of the BASIS, officially inaugurated the platform, the first of its kind in Bangladesh, titled 'FundSME.com.bd'.

Crowd-funding is a well-known platform in western countries and even in India where innovators can register their creative products and ideas and offer opportunities to investors to invest. This allows investors to inject even a small amount like a few thousand taka.

BD Venture will take some upfront fees from the entrepreneurs for making their products ready and the match-making meetings.

Speaking at the event, speakers said the youth of the country have very lucrative ideas that can change the whole country. However, they do not have enough funds to make their ideas into reality.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who have money to invest but cannot do so as they don't have any suitable business idea.

“We want to help both parties match each other through this initiative,” said Haque.

This type of crowd-funding platform has brought success in many countries and has changed the ecosystem of digitisation, said Shawkat Hossain, managing director of BD Venture Ltd.

Almas Kabir called the initiative “revolutionary” for the start-up industry and said the BASIS, as a trade body, will support the initiative.

Farzana Chowdhury, managing director of Green Delta Insurance Company, said people who have ideas but lack money or links will get the highest level of support from the platform.

“This platform will transform a person from zero to hero,” she said.

Later in the evening, Hossain, also general secretary of the Venture Capital and Private Equity Association of Bangladesh, said a number of entrepreneurs have registered their ideas after the launch of the platform.