Flipkart raises $700 million in fresh funds. Policy Bazaar is in advanced talks to raise $40 million from Venture Capitalists.
Open any morning daily, and headlines like these are bound to catch your attention. Venture Capitalists and Angel investors are betting high on markets like India. Biggies like Infosys, Make My Trip and Accel Partners are earmarking huge sums of money exclusively for Indian startups.
But is there moolah for an aspiring tech entrepreneur on the street?
The general impression is – there isn’t.
I get to meet a lot of engineers during my talks in various Indian Universities and organizations like NASSCOM and TIE. Again, as part of my work, I get a chance to interact with some of the brightest IT brains. Many of them have loads of ideas churning in their heads about developing new Apps or tech products. But the common refrain among them is –Angel funding is hard to get. I need to have the right set of contacts for Angel funders to notice me. People like you and me won’t get money to start a tech company.
So then, why not crowdsource money or crowdfund your idea, I ask them.
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The Crowd Puller According to the World Bank, by 2025, the crowdfunding market potential will be more than $90 billion globally, roughly 1.8 times the size of venture capital industry. In 2014, Kickstarter, a leading crowdfunding platform had more than $1,000 pledged every minute. The same platform had $125 million being pledged to technology solutions last year, the highest for any category. On Wishberry, a popular crowdfunding platform in India, 70% of projects have met their funding targets. |
Over the last two decades, I have had the opportunity to serve in entrepreneurial and management roles in various companies across the globe. Also, I had the fortune to start and lead a host of tech ventures in the last 6 years. I feel that I may be in a position to help ambitious and aspiring tech businesspersons get off to a good start to their entrepreneurial dreams, through crowdsourcing their initial capital requirements. And this was how the idea of a blog series on crowdfunding sprouted in my mind.
Over the weeks (and articles) ahead, I will try to ‘demystify’ crowdfunding for you. I will try to help you with tips and strategies to get access to quality crowdfunding for your idea(s). Keep watching this space.
Feel free to tweet your questions on crowdfunding to @kmukund7. You can also e-mail me your queries at hello@mukundkrishna.com.
Give wings to your dreams,
Mukund
