Business of Crowdfunding in India

Crowdfunding platforms in India work in a negative regulatory space rather than a positive one: many of them know what does not work, but are not very sure about what does. This report explains the status of regulations for crowdfunding, the challenges the businesses face while operating, how they monetize, and also gives an overview of the draft regulatory guidlines from India's stock market regulator SEBI.

We spoke extensively to senior executives with platforms that allow donation, equity, rewards and lending based crowdfunding, totalling around 568 minutes of interviews: while most of these interviews (with companies like Wishberry, Ketto, Bitgiving, The Hotstart, Catapoolt, iLend, Milaap and Rang De) were conducted towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, not much has changed: the interviews gave us valuable insights into the business of crowdfunding in India. We've also included a few quick case studies on projects related to electronic, arts and movies space we tried to understand the real life challenges of raising money through crowdfunding.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction a) Types of crowdfunding b)Funding models)
2. Reward based crowdfunding a) Regulatory overview b) Agreements & contracts c) Payments, monetization & challenges
3. Equity based crowdfunding a) Regulatory overview b) Who can raise equity through crowdfunding c) Alternate ways of funding
4. Lending based crowdfunding a) Peer-to-peer & non peer-to-peer (regulatory overview) b) Monetization & risk minimization c) Challenges
5. Donation based crowdfunding a) Regulatory overview b) Monetisation & tax benefits
6. Marketing a campaign
7. Case studies of successful crowdfunded projects
8. Annexure: Interview with Vishwas Patel, CEO of CCAvenue