ah! Venture reinvests in crowdfunding platform Ketto; raises $700K through Chennai Angels, others
By Swadha Mishra •
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Mumbai-based crowdfunding platform for social, personal and creative projects Ketto has raised $700K in latest round of funding led by Chennai Angles and Calcutta Angles along with ah! Ventures, Intellcap Impact Investment Network, Indus Age Partners, Singapore Angel Network, India Internet Fund, LetVenture and Project Guerrilla.
Commenting on the investment, Harshad Lahoti, Co-founder, ah! Ventures, said, "ah! Impact, the platform through with the investment 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.
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. The company has witnessed a growth of 3000 per cent year-on-year basis in terms of volumes.
In the last 12 months, multiple celebrities and 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.
With global crowdfunding market estimated to reach $96 billion 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.
