Impact Guru, a Mumbai based crowdfunding startup has raised a Seed round of $500K from Singapore VC, RB Investments and Southeast Asia private fund, Fundnel. The funds will be utilized to to scale social/donation crowdfunding (online) for nonprofits, social enterprises and personal causes.
An incubatee of Harward Innovation Lab’s Venture Initiation Program in USA in 2014, Impact Guru is offers a full stack crowdfunding solution that combines social or donation crowdfunding, rewards crowdfunding, and investment crowdfunding / fundraising for individuals, nonprofits, social enterprises, or startups for all their fundraising needs – be it small or large.
The startup has offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and San Francisco.
“The traditional charity and social enterprise fundraising model in India is broken. The alternatives to online fundraising are outdated, expensive, and ineffective.” said Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Impact Guru. “We firmly believe that a full stack crowdfunding solution that combines social, rewards and investment crowdfunding will make Impact Guru a platform of choice for all.”
The funds would help the startup to expand core team, to accelerate product development and sales and marketing efforts particularly for rewards crowdfunding for startups and social enterprises, and to build a larger community of donors, customers, and investors.
In fact, the deal aims to leverage engagement of both Impact Guru and Fundnel in the exchange and collaboration of relevant know-how in crowdfunding, technology and deal syndication.
First, Impact Guru would use Fundnel’s private investment network for facilitating equity or debt funding (offline) for startups and social enterprises in India and Southeast Asia. The successful startups on the platform can further get a chance to demonstrate traction to Fundnel’s network of family offices, venture capital funds, and accredited investors for international investment and for further scaling within Southeast Asia.
Also, the relationship would help to extend its influence beyond India to attract more philanthropic and/or investment capital from NRIs / PIOs abroad especially those residing in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia which are estimated to be 2.5mm.
For Fundnel, it is a step closer to get access to more investors and deal flow from the Indian community. “We aim to further scale our footprint through this partnership in order to gain access to the Indian startup and investment community. Furthermore, with this door into the niche market of social enterprises, we believe that we can provide our new and existing investors with more innovative deals and socially responsible investing opportunities,” said Kelvin Lee, Co-Founder of Fundnel.
The deal also marks two additions to its Advisory Board, viz. Harvard Business School Professor Ramana Nanda, an expert in entrepreneurial finance and management, and Gaurav Gupta, Regional Director for Asia, Dalberg, a thought leader in the social sector.
Earlier this year, another fintech startup SwitchMe has also raised undisclosed angel funding from investors such as Mohandas Pai, Hiro Mashita, Singapore Angels, and others.
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