Leading Indian crowdfunding platform Wishberry, founded by ex-McKinsey consultants Priyanka Agarwal (CEO) and Anshulika Dubey (COO) in 2012 has secured $650,000 or four crores in seed funding. The round has been co-led by Rajan Anandan, MD Google India, and Sharad Sharma, Co-Founder of iSPIRT Foundation, along with 42 strategic investors including leading Bollywood composer Shankar Mahadevan, Rohit Khattar, Chairman of Mumbai Mantra, official partner to the Sundance Film Festival, SEBI board member Mohandas Pai, and seasoned entrepreneurs Deep Kalra (Make My Trip) and Amit Ranjan (SlideShare).
With a community of 9,000+ funders across 50+ countries and a campaign success rate of 75%, Wishberry is India's leading rewards-based crowdfunding platform and commonly referred to as “Indian’s Kickstarter.”
"Crowdfunding has immense long term potential in India, and Wishberry has an awesome team with a deep understanding of what it takes to win in India," said Rajan Anandan.
Wishberry focuses on projects spanning across film, music, arts and design, theatre, food, technology innovations and publishing. However, creative projects account for 70% of funds raised on Wishberry so far, of which music and film alone account for 50%.
“I am excited about finding the next generation of fantastic musicians and creating purposeful, inspiring music,” said Shankar Mahadevan.
Wishberry plans to use the funds to grow its team across marketing and technology and build awareness for crowdfunding in India.
"Our goal is to crowdfund 100 crores across 5,000 projects over the next two years and raise our Series A," said Priyanka. "In five years, we want to build a community of 3-4 million funders and support 50,000 creative projects on Wishberry."
Wishberry selects projects based on their crowdfundability. Considering the fact that Indians are not used to the Western concept of DIY, Wishberry assigns a crowdfunding coach to guide the selected campaign creators in creating compelling pitch videos, developing rewards, and marketing.
Once a campaign goes live on Wishberry, the project creator has to reach his/her target amount within 60 days, failing which, all the money is refunded back to the funders making it an “all-or-nothing” platform, ensuring transparency and trust.
Wishberry charges a non-refundable fee of Rs. 2,500 for campaign consulting and 10% a commission on the funds raised by successful projects.
Within a short span, many interesting creative projects have come out of Wishberry, such as:
- Kothanodi, an Assamese film by Bhaskar Hazarika that raised Rs. 22 lakhs
- Menstrupedia, a comic book about menstruation that raised Rs. 6 lakhs and eventually got sponsored by P&G
- IGNITE! a festival of contemporary Dance that raised Rs. 15 lakhs in just 30 days.
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