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KR Srivats
Crowdera, a freemium crowd-funding and online fund-raising platform, is now focussed on scaling up in India, said its founder Chet Jain.
The four-year-old fintech plans to launch a 24/7 customer service centre in India to cater to global fund-raisers, Jain told BusinessLine .
“Now our foundation is strong. We are live in 200 countries. Our platform is stable, and we see this as the right time for us to scale. The first market we want to scale is India,” said Jain
Global hub
Jain said that Crowdera, which works as a software-as-a-service (SAAS) provider, is now looking to make India its product headquarters for the world.
“We will have sales offices in developed markets such as the US, the UK and Singapore,” he said.
Typically, fund-raising platforms allow individuals, groups and organisations to share their stories via crowd-funding campaigns hosted on their platforms. These campaigns are then shared via internet and social media, and small donations are collected to raise money for their goal.
Jain said that even individuals with a worthy cause could use the Crowdera platform to raise funds to meet their goals. This fund-raising platform would be available free to them, he said.
“We are free for individuals and even for our premium offerings to organisations; we don’t charge any commissions. People hate commissions.
“Even if you raise ₹10 crore, I don’t care. We are happy with the small licence fee. If the cause for the fund-raising is aligned with our philosophy, then we will even waive that off (licence fee),” he added.
When asked to share the aspirations for the company, Jain said the goal is that “we want people to think Crowdera whenever they think money”.
The goal for the next three years is to be a reward-based fund-raising platform and get some blockchain to improve transparency.
“We want to be a primary alternative financing solution over a period of time. By 2025, our aim is to be a substantially large company, which will become a leader in the alternative funding space. It could be donations, rewards or even equity. We are an engine, we can get into any space,” he said.
It is not just India-focussed American non-profits that use Crowdera. Even Indian non-profits do so, and are ready to pay for using the software to raise funds, according to Jain.
“Indian non-profits are willing to pay. I thought India is more of a giving back – I thought India will be my branding engine and US my running engine. Surprisingly, Indian non-profits have, evolved and they really want to pay. Different models are coming up. People want us to help them in social-media marketing and advertising. We are doing that also,” he said.
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