Ketto Wins Wharton India Startup Competition, Gets $30K As Prize Money

Crowdfunding platform, Ketto, has won the Wharton India Startup Competition, held on 5th January, 2016 in Mumbai. The startup received $30K as prize money alongwith 150 hours of legal advice from Khaitan and Co.

Ketto will also get an opportunity to pitch at the annual conference to be held in Philadelphia, USA planned for March 25, 2016.

Founded in 2012 by Varun Sheth, Kunal Kapoor and Zaheer Adenwala Ketto is said to be the Asia’s largest crowdfunding platform for social, personal and creative projects, according to crowdsurfer.com. It helps non-profit organizations to raise funds for supported and listed causes.

Ketto has raised over $700k in funding led by Pradyumna Dalmia, deal champion of Calcutta Angels and Sudhir Rao, deal champion of The Chennai Angels, co-founder of IndusAge Partners and others in July, 2015.

To mark its 20th anniversary Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF), a student-run India-focused conference hosted its annual conference for the first time in India. WIEF was started by a Wharton school MBA student, Venkat Badinehal, 20 years back with an aim to connect the western world to India’s business potential and facilitate tie-ups.

The top ten startups that pitched during the event were shortlisted from 750 applications on the basis of having a product or service for the Indian market, both for profit and social ventures.

Apart from Ketto, Kheyti, an agri-tech startup, received the People choice award with $5K as Prize money and Trebene, a startup founded by Bushera Bashir – won the Powerhouse award of $15K. Pratilipi, Amazon’s kindle Direct Publishing for Indian languages, won the powerhouse award of $25K.

The pitches were judged by Kirthiga Reddy – Managing Director, Facebook India, Sasha Mirchandani – Founder and Managing Director, KAE Capital, Ravi Gururaj from Nasscom, Sandeep Murthy – Partner, Lightbox Ventures, Pravan Malhotra – venture capital investor, International Finance Corporation, Rajan Mehra – Co-Founder and Managing Director, Nirvana Venture Advisors and Sri Peddu – Founder and Managing Director, Powerhouse Ventures.

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