– Ketto targets US $100m through crowdfunding
– Raises $700k investment led by Chennai Angels and Calcutta Angels along with ah! Ventures and others
Mumbai, July 2105;
Mumbai based crowdfunding platform for social, personal and creative projects Ketto has raised USD $700k funding led by Chennai Angles and Calcutta Angles along with ah! Ventures, Intellcap Impact Investment Network, IndusAge Partners, Singapore Angel Network, India Internet Fund, LetVenture, and Project Guerrilla.
With the infused funds, the startup plans to double its technology and business development team with an aim to reach USD $100m in volumes by crowdfunding. Ketto also plans to expand operations in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, among other South-East Asian countries.
Founded in October, 2012 by Varun Sheth, Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor and Zaheer Adenwala, Ketto is Asia’s largest crowdfunding platform for social, personal and creative projects, according to crowdsurfer.com. The company has witnessed a growth of 3000% year-on-year basis in terms of volumes, and in the past few months, has been crowdfunding close to a crore monthly.
In the last 12 months, multiple celebrities & corporates have backed various projects by raising funds on Ketto. The list includes names like- Hritik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan, Anuskha Sharma, Myntra, Star Sports, among others.
Recently, Ketto has created first-of-its-kind partnership with Lakme Fashion Week –to provide a platform to the seven GenNext designers to garner funds to launch their label at the upcoming showcase in August, 2015 in Mumbai.
With global crowdfunding market estimated to reach $96 bn by 2025, and Asia being the key growth driver, Ketto is uniquely positioned to amass maximum support for a project of any kind–be it disaster, social, technology, creative or personal.
Abhijeet Kumar, the co-founder of ah! Ventures said, “ah! Impact, the platform through with the investment in Ketto was made in 2013 was created to support the growing number of social enterprises. The re-investment is our commitment and foresight towards social investing in India, also the large number of our investors, which are mostly first time investors have shown great interest in investing in social enterprises with high potential and measurable social or environmental impact.”
ah! Impact is in the process of closing another social impact deal soon.