liwwa is the latest crowd investment platform to come out of the Middle East. The service was created by two Palestinian entrepreneurs, Ahmed Moor and Samer Atiani, who “decided to develop a way to use the power of the internet to work on the chronic unemployment and underdevelopment problems.” The platform is not your run of the mill crowd funding platform: It is Sharia-compliant, the first of its kind that pays investors a return on a regular basis based on a lease-to-own structure. This means that there is no equity or interest in the equation.
liwwa incurs a 2% account service fee from investors for every repayment a small business makes. So if the funded asset is worth $1100, and the investee has to repay the amount over 6 monthly payments, plus 100 in profit, this will translate into six $200 payments. liwwa collects 2% of that amount, or $4, every months.
“It was important to us that we align our incentives with those of our investors so we only generate revenue as small businesses make the monthly lease payments on the assets we’ve helped fund.”
Right now the service is available to small businesses in Lebanon and Jordan, and to investors in Lebanon, Jordan, the US, and the UAE. The model is viable across MENA and the Islamic world, but also anywhere small businesses need access to growth assets. The founders’ aim is to build a global company.
Currently, liwwa only funds assets of up to $10,000 in value. But that limit will increase in the future. The team is also eager to work with startups but regular mom-and-pop businesses are also very exciting client segment for us.
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