Springleap, the South African crowdsourcing startup that was the co-winner of MentorCamp in September, will move to Halifax in the New Year, complete with a new feature and (hopefully) a new round of funding.

Now based in Cape Town, Springleap was recruited to Halifax to participate in MentorCamp, a one-day training session for entrepreneurs, by the founder of the event, Permjot Valia, who does business in the African country. The 40-or-so international mentors at MentorCamp were so impressed with Springleap that they awarded it one of two first prizes, each comprising an equity investment of $25,000.

And Springleap CEO Eran Eyal was so impressed with Halifax that he made no secret of his intention to move his company here, with a plan to take up residence  himself. Last week he was back in the city, delighted to be here even though the temperature was -6C in Halifax and 21C back in Cape Town.

“I found it very difficult to set up some aspects of the operation from South Africa,” he said. “So I came back here to connect with other entrepreneurs and angels.”

Half in jest, Eyal said he hopes Springleap will open its Halifax office in the depths of winter so that he can get on with developing the operations as the weather warms up. He openly admits that he is not a patient person, and he can’t wait to get going here, to hire hard-working people who  will help him turn Springleap into a successful venture.

With clients like Nokia, Samsung, Google, Kraft Foods, and Unilever, Springleap is a crowdsourcing design firm that differentiates itself from competitors such as 99design. Like others, Springleap allows clients to hold contests among thousands of artists to see who can produce the best design, but Eyal said Springleap exceeds its competitors  by focusing on quality, community, and what he calls “embeddability”, meaning its technology can be embedded in other sites. What’s more, he said  Springleap can help clients optimize their advertising spending because it brings so much social media know-how to the relationship.

Springleap aims to avoid mediocrity in its designs by setting a floor of at least $2,000 for the prize of each design contest. These contests don’t just take place on the Springleap website. The embeddability application allows the client to host the contest on any platform it chooses – such as its own website, its Facebook page, another site, or several simultaneously.

The designers can also bring their own networks into the contests, and the members of these networks  become more familiar with the client’s product and brand, said Eyal.The company has recently enhanced its embedded function so it helps the customer or brand set up a contest on the client’s website or Facebook page, and then Springleap brings its network of 201,000 Facebook followers to the contest. That means the customer can get feedback on a new design from a vast range of people, and it means the brand’s social network reach spreads into the Springleap network.

Eyal says he is now weeks away from closing a round of funding with a $700,000 target. That includes Valia’s investment from MentorCamp, and an investment from Jeff Amerine, an Arkansas-based authority on startups who was a mentor at the event.

“I’m excited to have Jeff on board because he’s a phenomenal adviser and we want to do a lot of business in Arkansas,” Eyal said.