How a Harvard grad founded a crowdfunding startup to lend a hand in India

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Want to fund your startup? Fund your very own international rock star tour? Help fund drought-stricken areas of your country? If you’ve got a dream, chances are a well-run crowdfunding campaign can help you achieve it.

Consultant and former investment banker Piyush Jain took enthusiasm for the method a step further, studying crowdfunding and social impact bonds while getting his master’s degree at Harvard, He wrote his graduate thesis on using crowdfunding to solve developmental problems in India.

In 2014, a year after he graduated, he and his wife Khushboo founded a crowdfunding fintech startup called Impact Guru, which was incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Initiation Program in 2014 and PACT at Impact Hub in Singapore in 2015. Last month, it raised US$500,000 in a seed funding round.

Piyush Jain, co-founder and CEO of Impact Guru

Now the duo are in Mumbai. The site offers crowdfunding options for those who want to invest in individuals, nonprofits, social enterprises, or startups. It also lets people donate via rewards crowdfunding (think Indiegogo’s perks) or just plain donate cash. Nonprofits on the site in particular are curated for unique ideas, efficiency, and proper documentation through Impact Guru’s philanthropic go-betweens that have decades of experience in the space.

“We are not positioning ourselves as a social enterprise,” Piyush tells Tech in Asia. “We are a for profit company that helps the social sector.”

Fundraisers get to keep 90 percent of the money they raise, with two to three percent going to pay gateway fees charged by credit and debit card companies and seven percent going to Impact Guru. In comparison, Kickstarter keeps five percent of the funds collected, with payment processing taking an additional three to five percent.

At the moment, it has over 100 active fundraisers.

Charities fundraising through the site get donations from Impact Guru per Facebook share – up to US$15, depending on the fundraiser.

The startup has a full-time team of around 10 people and offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and San Francisco.

Wealth of experience

Photo credit: Tax Credits.

Socially conscious

Experimenting