Karzar, the Social Startup Platform, Receives Its Revenue from Social Responsibility; CEO States High Risk is Why Investors Haven’t Invested
Karzar, a social startup platform, generates its revenue through social responsibility. According to the CEO of Karzar, Hamed Bidi, there has been no investment in the platform so far, primarily due to the high risk and unpredictability associated with the project.
In a media and civil advocacy meeting reported by Iran digital economy, Bidi emphasized that the high risk of the project is the main reason venture investors are not attracted to Karzar. However, he explained that their revenue model is based on voluntary payments made by petition signers, which funds the promotion of their causes on the site.
Bidi explained that Karzar operates as a social startup but generates income through social responsibility initiatives. Because Karzar falls under social responsibility, it has not pursued a revenue model with businesses and politicians.
Regarding the platform’s statistics, Bidi mentioned that Karzar has hosted over 37 million signatures from more than 16 million users for approximately 30,000 petitions. A signature is recorded every three seconds, and one million new petitions are added monthly. The focus is not on reaching more audiences but on increasing the impact of the petitions. Raising awareness and creating change are highly important to them.
Currently, there are 5,500 users who have signed 100 petitions. In October 2022, the number of petitions and signatures decreased due to citizen disillusionment, which has a direct impact on petition registration and demands. Last year, Karzar had 439 official letters registered with various organizations.
According to Karzar’s statistics for 2024, more than 50% of petitions were in the economic and professional sectors. After this, citizen, student, environmental, political, and sports issues were the most significant.
Bidi explained that Karzar’s process of making an impact allows any citizen, regardless of their connections with media or legal authorities, to use the platform to hold officials accountable and drive desired changes. One of these avenues is public opinion and social media, while media plays a significant role in spreading petition topics, such as the largest petition against the Protection Plan, which garnered 1,197,000 signatures.
He added that local petitions focus on specific cities or provinces. For instance, local petitions in Isfahan lead, followed by Khorasan Razavi, Fars, Tehran, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchestan in terms of the number of demands. Conversely, the fewest petitions are from South Khorasan, North Khorasan, Qom, and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces. As of last October, there were 400 rural petitions, with a success rate two to three times higher than other petitions on the platform.
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