About Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is not new to India. From Dhirubhai Ambani’s then small venture funded by locals to temples being built overnight with donations, India has harnessed crowd power. Startups such as Ketto, BitGiving and wishberry have repackaged this age-old concept with a digital bow. Crowdfunding platforms now cater to a plethora of causes from disaster relief, entrepreneurship, art, individual causes and environmental issues. When Delhi based animal care shelter Friendicoes was on the verge of shutting shop, animal lovers came to their rescue on BitGiving. Friendicoes managed to rope in up to Rs60 lakh. While BitGiving helped the Indian National Hockey Team bag over Rs5 lakh to support their participation in the Asian Championship, Catapooolt helped Anjum Jamsenpa raise Rs24 lakh to break her own record and summit Mt Everest for the fourth time. Punyakoti, an animated film in Sanskrit bagged Rs42 lakh from 300 funders on Wishberry in November 2015. Wishberry has funded 250 projects totaling Rs7 crore with 15,000 backers till date. Experts say the growth of such platforms may lead to a level-playing field in the startup ecosystem.    

When the rains ravaged Chennai, multiple campaigns on ketto raised Rs1.38 crore to date. Ketto, founded by Varun Sheth, Kunal Kapoor and Zaheer Adenwala in September 2012, has raised over Rs10 crore through 4,000-plus campaigns. Several campaigns on ketto are run by Bollywood celebrities like Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan. On Ketto, several backers united for heart rendering causes such as a bone-marrow transplant for a young girl in Mumbai which garnered over Rs10 lakh, and rehabilitation of a girl in Kolkata affected by an extreme case of Neurofibromatosis which raised a similar amount.