Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra Invests In Online Citizen Engagement platform LocalCircles

New Delhi-based online citizen engagement platform, LocalCircles, has raised an undisclosed amount from Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra.

With this, Anand will also join Godrej Industries MD, Nadir Godrej and Maruti Chairman, RC Bhargava, on the LocalCircles.

Launched in 2013, LocalCircles is an online citizen engagement platform that enables citizens to connect with causes that they care about ranging from civic issues, finding emergency assistance, law & order, local & national governance and more.

Its founding team comprises of Sachin Taparia, former managing director at Boeing International, K Yatish Rajawat, former group managing editor of Dainik Bhaskar group, Mukesh Gupta, former executive of Juniper Networks and Abhishek Gupta, former executive of Oracle Inc.

The platform enables citizens to come together to assist each other, share information, find a resolution, connect with the administration, participate in national/local governance and improve their urban daily lives. It already has communities in 200 cities of India.

With the newly raised capital, the company plans to make its network available to more citizens and causes across India.

LocalCircles’ collective citizen participation has impacted many areas of governance and communities. A few of the many examples are:

• The Chennai Emergency Response circle with 25,000 citizens assisting each other during Chennai floods and collectively working to get telecom service providers and banks to provide special credits and permit payment delays.
• The LocalCircles 1 year Swachh Bharat poll with 335,000 strong citizens across 200 cities highlighting to the Government what’s working and what needs immediate attention to make Swachh Bharat delivery more effective.
• The 140,000 strong Make Railways Better community whose collective inputs are regularly used by Ministry of Railways, and played a direct role in the budget and identifying the tout booking scam
• The Blood circle of Delhi/NCR with 100,000 blood donors being able to assist with a Blood request within few hours.

LocalCircles represents Social Media 2.0 which is focused on solving real world problems by bringing people together.

The company is also in discussions with several other social impact investors for the next round of fundraising, which is estimated at INR 20 Cr.

During the concept stage, LocalCircles had raised an undisclosed amount from Nadir Godrej.

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