This discovery laid the genesis of WinZo Games, which is today India’s largest vernacular Esports gaming platform. Available in 10 different languages, this young startup has successfully broken the vernacular barrier and has taken the passion of gaming to the very hinterlands of India. Not surprisingly, today this young company’s majority of customers hail from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

WinZo Games’ aim to disrupt India’s vernacular gaming market has also resonated with the investors. This is clearly indicated by the fact that the company has so far successfully raised two funding rounds in a very short span of time. It recently raised $5 million in Series A round that was led by Kalaari Capital and messaging platform Hike. This was preceded by a seed funding round that took place last year.

To know more about this young ambitious company, Techpluto caught up with WinZo Games’ co-founder and CEO Paavan Nanda in an exclusive interview. In this special interview, Paavan Nanda sheds light on WinZo Games’ special features, future plans and overall future of India’s gaming industry.

Q) How did the disruptive idea of starting a vernacular gaming platform came to you?

It was in late 2017 and early 2018 that we identified a lot was happening in the digital space in the country, especially in the online gaming segment and that there is massive potential in the Tier 2/ Tier 3 audience coming on the mobile phones for the first time. That is where we decided to bring a unique and stable monetization model to tap into massive gaming engagement in India.

We founded WinZO Games with an aim to be India’s biggest online social gaming platform. We started our journey in early 2018 and developed a Tier2/Tier3 audience focused product to introduce them to the digital grid where they make their first entertainment transaction. Today, WinZO Games is a pioneer in the industry, with 9 million+ install base in just one year; and over 30% of the users are making their first ever entertainment transaction on the platform.

WinZO is one of the fastest growing players in the industry! And we aim to become the world’s largest online social gaming platform.

We got our Seed capital in April 2018 from K-Start and Series A from Kalaari Capital  and HIKE early this year, to further scale the product and reach to the wider audience.

Q) WinZO Games recently raised $5 Mn in Series A round. How does the company plan to use the latest capital infusion?

We plan to strategically use the funds to enhance our user experience, bringing more engaging games, and adding more languages on the platform. We are also looking forward to expanding our user base in India and other countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Middle Eastern Countries, and African Countries and create a much-localized experience for the audience that is coming on the digital grid for the first time.

We clocked 9 million + user base in less than a year, this speaks a lot about our aggressive plans, and to capture the next 400 million users who are going to join the smartphone bandwagon by 2020.

At WinZO we are focusing on a very unorthodox way to capture the interest of the users. Being a vernacular gaming platform focusing on Tier 2/ 3 market, our strategies include focusing on building community of local influencers to derive our installs and engagement.

With data rates in India cheapest across the globe and affordable Smartphone market growing, India is poised to witness a large chunk of its population shift towards smart phones. All these people are expected to consume the content. Video and Gaming are the two biggest entertainment channels for the Smartphone users and is poised to grow at a YoY Growth rate of 32% as per the latest KPMG report.

Q) Can you please walk us through your gaming platform. Currently, what games are available and some of the important features available on your platform?

WinZO is a vernacular social gaming platform, and when we say vernacular it means the app is present in vernacular languages. WinZO is currently offered in 10 languages- English, Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Bhojpuri.

Some Important Features:

• 30+ Games with some of the popular titles like Carrom, Cricket, 8 Ball Pool, Sniper 3D, Bubble Shooter, Fruit Samurai, Knife Up, Fantasy League, and Trivia based questions.
• All the regional language translation on the app is done by Housewives, School teachers and university students sitting in Tier- 2/3/4 cities in India.
• The players can play games in multiple formats like 24*7 Tournaments, Real time multiplayer format – WinZO Baazi, and the Versus mode.
• The ticket for games varies from Rs. 2 to Rs. 25

We understand the behavior of the users in this segment very well. We have spent a lot of time working closely with this target group building a product for them. For example, average time spent by active players on the platform is 60 mins and overall time spent on the platform on an average is 40 mins. This itself is the testament of our continuous effort to build a great product.

Q) Going forward, is WinZO planning to add more new games and features to its platform?

Consolidating and creating the distinguished user experience is an ongoing process. We recently announced to set aside a $1.5 million fund for game developers in India, this fund aims to improve the supply side of gaming industry, supporting young game developers and giving them a platform to showcase their games and at the same time monetize it. We will be adding more than 100 games by 2020 on the platform, to make WinZO an entertainment powerhouse.

Q) How really big is the online gaming opportunity in India’s non-metro cities?

India’s rapid digital consumption has overwhelmingly changed the way we adopt content. And with Jio’s entry the reach has just increased many folds. According to the latest report by KPMG, The Gaming segment was the outperformers in the M&E Industry in FY19, growing at a rate of 41.6% to reach at a size of INR 62 billion with robust growth in both ARPU’s and the numbers of gamers in India (Estimated at 300 million in FY19), driven by rapid digital adoption. Non- Metros and Upcoming as a huge potential in terms of growth owing to increasing smart phone penetration, cheap data rates, and rise in disposable income.

Q) With smartphone penetration growing rapidly across India’s rural areas, do you think that competition in the vernacular gaming space will only intensify in the coming years?   

Competition in the vernacular gaming space will definitely intensify in coming years, and it will not just intensify in gaming but also in other modes of entertainment like OTT. With more and more users  consuming content in non-English languages, this has triggered the M&E platforms to revisit their content strategies. However, WinZO has a first mover advantage of providing games in 10 vernacular languages, which has helped built strong user base across the country. We aim to further add more regional languages and games to consolidate our position in the in the online social gaming space.

Interestingly, India is steadily moving towards value driven consumption, with increased focus on local development. Earlier the challenges were restricted to limited local content and game development and stable monetization model; however, with WinZO we are solving the issues and providing an all in one entertainment app, localized for Indian users.

Q) Where do you see WinZO Games in next 2-3 years in terms of growth and expansion?

We are creating a multi-billion-dollar market. In the coming months and years, we would be responsible to create a lot of awareness, educate users, and help them adopt our platform as the #1 option for entertainment. And here we are talking about doing it at a very massive scale to the tune of 500 million people just in India.

The goal of the company is to reach every household, which is definitely going to be very challenging. It would need a reasonable amount of capital as well as best talent of the country that would go into building the most amazing entertainment platform for Bharat.

Q) You are also the co-founder of popular hospitality startups like Zostel and Zo Rooms. Looking back at your rich experience, what important advice you’d like to give to all the budding entrepreneurs out there?

As a co-founder of Zostel and ZO rooms and now WinZO, I think the common thread knitting all my learning  as an entrepreneur is about the passion to create a marketplace which can disrupt and create opportunities. My Advice to all the budding entrepreneurs is that believe in your idea and passion to make it big. The most successful startups are founded by people who are passionate about what they do. Also, I believe that it is important to build strong teams, having a strong team will make your business more resilient and stronger.

Q) Your sincere thoughts about the cruel fact that 90% of startups end up as failure?

I think failure is not a yardstick to measure success, but a ground which makes you stronger, more focused and resilient. I believe entrepreneurship is a journey and not a destination and with all the failures, which hits you it is the learning and experience which helps us make a stronger and  powerful comeback. If we look around the world, many successful leaders  were labeled as failures at some point in their lives, however, they took the failures as a learning and proved the world wrong.

The post We want to make WinZo Games the most Amazing Entertainment Platform for ‘Bharat’ appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

Back in India, the co-working industry is steadily gathering pace and in the midst of this growing competition the one player that has emerged as a poster boy of this industry is Awfis. Founded in 2015, Awfis in a very short span of time has emerged as India’s largest co-working startup. The company’s expansion journey from operating only 5,800 desks across 20 centres in July 2017 to 30,000 seats across 63 centres in 9 cities now is a clear sign of its stupendous success and bright prospects.

Awfis also boasts a very healthy balance sheet, with the company consistently managing to double its revenue on year-on-year basis. Not to mention that the company has already achieved the important milestone of ‘becoming profitable’ within few years of its operation.

With such strong growth credentials, investors are unsurprisingly going full throttle to repose their faith on this young company. The company has so far raised $81 Mn from several high profile investors, with the recent series D round fetching nearly $30 Mn.

Techpluto caught up with Mr. Amit Ramani, CEO  & Founder, Awfis in an exclusive interview. In this special interview, Amit Ramani has shed light on Awfis’ latest funding, future growth prospects and other important aspects with regards to the overall co-working industry.                                      

Firstly, we’d like to offer our heartiest congratulation to Awfis for latest fundraising round of $30 Mn? Can you please enlighten how does the company plans to utilize this latest capital infusion?

Till date, Awfis has received $81 mn funding in total and we intend to utilize the latest funding for fueling further expansion. This is will enable us to sustain our leadership position in the coworking industry. We are looking at expanding our network to 400 centers and 2,00,000 seats over the next 36 months, by deepening our presence in existing markets & foraying into new micro markets in India. Additionally, the funds will be deployed to introduce innovative products/services backed by new-age technology to enhance customer experience. We will also put further impetus on our B2B offerings such as Awfis Enterprise Solutions (AES) as well as Mobility Solutions to meet the needs of the growing corporate India. 

What, according to you, are the key factors that is pushing large corporates and MNCs towards co-working space?

Globally, Corporates have adopted flexible workspace as core part of their real estate strategy. In India coworking has seen a very strong uptick from Corporates and SME’s owing to the ease of doing business in flexible workspaces. As a result, the coworking segment has seen 25% share of the new leasing activity in 2018. The trend will continue in 2019 as the mindset shifts for flexible workspaces becoming a core part of the real estate for all enterprises. It has become a core part of the corporate economy due to the multiple benefits of hassle free ready to use spaces with complete flexibility and significantly higher design quotient. It also fosters shared economy i.e. sharing common resources on the open floor which in turn aids in reducing fixed costs of the businesses which consists of start-ups, freelancers, large corporates, MNCs etc. Indian coworking sector is treading on the path to become one of the top three markets in the world (Source: Colliers).

To cater to the specific requirements of large corporates/MNCs & SMEs, Awfis has expanded its portfolio and launched Awfis Enterprise Solutions (AES), a hassle-free way of setting up, designing, building and managing one’s ‘own’ office space. Several SMEs and corporates are utilizing this model and setting up primary, satellite offices under this business model.

Currently at Awfis, we are servicing over 25,000 working professionals across 1500+ companies ranging from renowned clients such as Syngenta, Dun & Bradstreet, Duff & Phelps, Hinduja Global Services, Vodafone, Reliance, Hitachi, Blazeclan, Zomato, Practo etc. With a network of 30,000 seats across 9 cities with 63 centers, Awfis’ clientele ranges from 40% SMEs and corporates each and 20% of startups and freelancers.  

But ideally startups and SMEs share closer affiliation with co-working space due to affordability quotient. How critical has been the role of startups and SMEs in contributing to Awfis’ overall growth?      

The rise of coworking spaces was supported by the growth of start-ups and freelancers & due to the unconventional benefits that it offered to them, such as – flexibility, affordability, infrastructure & a community of like-minded individuals. SMEs and startups are on the lookout for Grade A workspaces at affordable prices.

Coworking spaces have not only disrupted the commercial real estate segment but also transformed the way businesses function by providing transparent workspace solutions that suit all segments – Corporates, SMEs & start-ups alike. SMEs, who now form a significant portion of shared workspaces client portfolio, are embracing them due to cost efficiency, technological advancements, superior infrastructure, enhanced productivity, easy operations and networking opportunities available. Awfis’ total customer base consists of 40% SMEs and 20%startups.

According to a recent report by JLL, the potential market size of coworking across India is expected to be 13.5 million users by 2020 with 10.3 mn seats occupied by enterprises. Freelancers and SMEs will make up for 1.5 million users and start-ups will demand 100,000 seats by 2020. While affordability is a key factor-influencing shared workspaces, the collaboration opportunities and potential clientele makes them a conventional choice for SMEs and startups alike. Coworking spaces are an ideal environment for any organization which enables them to focus solely on their business while other variables are taken care by the coworking space provider.

Earlier this year, Awfis opened its largest centre in Bengaluru. Can you please shed more light on this ambitious move?           

Awfis has been spearheading the coworking segment successfully since the past 4 years and recently opened a 63000 sq. ft. workspace at Residency Road, first of its largest center in Bangalore & in India. It is strategically located amidst a clutch of bustling areas such as UB City, Brigade Road, MG Road and Church Street and leading hospitality centers such as ITC Gardenia, Ritz Carlton, and The Gateway.

As compared to Awfis’ other centers, the residency road center is one of its kind. It has received immense success with 80% occupancy in the pre-launch sale & 95% occupancy rate within 3 months of its launch with clients like Reliance Communications, Frontizo Business Services, Equal Experts & The Math Company. The success of this center has given us the confidence to replicate it across other markets and micro-markets.

Providing best in class services across 11 centers in Bangalore, this center with 1050 workstations also flaunts a sprawling food court on the terrace with a capacity to accommodate over 350 clients. Awfis has completely revamped the building & transformed it completely to not only provide Grade A infrastructure that meets the exemplary standards of its other centres but also takes design, aesthetics and functionality one notch higher.

This year has proven to be really great for Awfis as it finally turned profitable. What were some of the key decisions & strategies that eventually helped the company to achieve profitability within the short span of three years?     

We are extremely happy with the community feedback we have received so far and our deep-rooted customer understanding along with customer centricity that has helped us with the unprecedented growth. We are cognizant of the ever evolving needs of the Indian consumer along with retaining the essence of the brand. Additionally, affordability is our key differentiator that has made us a primary choice amongst the Indian workforce.

At Awfis, we leverage Managed Aggregation Model (MAM) where Awfis ties up with landlords of underutilized commercial spaces and shares the revenue with landowner. The capital efficiency of MAM is a key differentiator that has aided our success. With MAM, in the amount of capital which another player would spend to set up 1 seat, we are able to set up 4 to 5 seats. Currently, 70% of seats are under ‘managed aggregation’ model and Awfis intends to increase this to 80% in the next 10-12 months. These are some of the aspects that have helped Awfis to fortify its position as the industry leader.    

What are some of the key transformations and trends that are currently sweeping across India’s co-working industry?  

The coworking space has emerged, as a disruptor is no secret with the commercial real estate market offering lucrative options for both buyers and investors alike. Coworking spaces have completely changed the definition of a workspace by revolutionising & challenging the limits of traditional offices. It has helped to break silos and move away from the closed doors & cubicle culture to an open floor with everyone working together.

Coworking is rapidly transforming into a mainstream segment, owing to the evolving role of technology and millennials forming an integral part of the workforce in India. This surge in demand is only slated to grow with over 13 million people expected to work out of coworking centres by 2020 in India (Source: CBRE). The market is slated to witness phenomenal growth in the Tier II markets as well owing to the increase in demand from large corporates, SMEs and startups due to increased need to enter newer markets and reach their target audience, thereby furthering the Indian coworking landscape.

Additionally, more and more corporates are opting for coworking players as a one-stop-solution for setting up their independent offices. Awfis has expanded its portfolio and is providing B2B solutions i.e. Awfis Enterprise Solutions (AES) and manages designing, building and managing office spaces (satellite offices/head offices) for big enterprises, MNCs and SMEs. Some of its clients include Syngenta, Dun & Bradstreet, Duff & Phelps, HGS, Vodafone, Blazeclan etc.

Tell us about how Awfis goes about ensuring that employees are able to strike that elusive work-life balance and make work more fun & enjoyable?  

Awfis is currently India’s largest coworking player with 63 centres spread across nine cities in the country. We have emerged as India’s largest and fastest growing workspace-as-a-service (WAAS) company with a vision of serving shared communities and delivering exceptional experiences. Work-life balance is championed at Awfis through exclusive events and activities, opportunities within the community to interact, collaborate and do business within.

Awfis curates 1000+ exclusive events, workshops and experiences every year for its community members.  Themed experiences like #Awfis Moments help community members from different organizations with similar interests’ bond with each other over enriching activities. Under its Rewards Program, Awfis has curated 100+ strategic partnerships that provide its community members seamless access to leading service providers & exclusive discounts across health & wellness, retail, restaurants, hotels, cab providers, entertainment etc. making it easier to make the most of being a part of Awfis community. 

Where do you see Awfis in the next 2-3 years from now?

We have established a strong presence in the segment and are looking at understanding the ever evolving needs of the Indian consumer so as to incorporate it without losing the essence of the brand. Being cognizant of the upcoming trends and the ever-evolving market needs, we are providing innovative products and solutions to community members.

As mentioned before, we have recently introduced “Awfis Enterprise Solutions (AES)” to offer end-to-end hassle-free workplace solutions to SMEs & Corporates. We intend to foray into our B2B venture to broaden our reach in the segment. Additionally, we have witnessed a strong entrepreneurial spirit in tier 2 cities of India and are foraying into these untapped markets. We launched a center in Chandigarh last year and intend to expand to cities such as Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Kochi, and Indore by 2020. Awfis is currently rapidly expanding across key metros & Tier-II cities and intends to double its seat capacity & centre network y-o-y. With continued momentum we expect to reach 2, 00,000 seats in the next 36 months. 

What you make of Oyo’s recent entry into the co-working space and WeWork’s rapid expansion across the Indian market. Do you think this will only further intensify the competition in the co-working industry?

We are aware of the competition in the industry; however, we have successfully created market leadership in the segment and continue to fortify the same with our unique offerings, vibrant workspaces at affordable price points. Currently, we have the largest network with 63 centres across 9 cities pan India.

We believe in being workspace partners for our clients and not mere service providers. We have successfully established an extremely strong foothold in the rapidly evolving coworking sector owing to our understanding of the micro markets & the overall Indian CRE business ecosystem. A home grown brand, at Awfis, we understand the challenges of Indian customers and have created customized solutions catering to different workspace requirements.

From supply perspective, we have been able to successfully identify underutilized assets, collaborate with landowners and deliver Grade A workspaces in a value driven manner which translates into better economics for both us and our various stakeholders. We have efficiently deployed our resources to meet our business requirements without hampering the quality of workspaces provided. This sets us apart from our competition, giving us a leverage over other players in the Indian Coworking market. 

Any foreseeable challenges that you feel the co-working industry may have to face in the coming years?  

The shared workspace segment is slated to grow with over 13 million people expected to work out of coworking centers by 2020 in India (Source: CBRE). So far, more and more companies are choosing Awfis as a workplace partner, however, we are cognizant that there is a significant chunk of companies who are still not ready to make the switch, with data security and breach on top of their concern list.

Despite Awfis’ sophisticated and strict protocols with regards to the same, it remains more of a mental obstacle for corporates. Additionally, although there is immense underlying real estate space available in the country, while landlords are hesitant in partnering with coworking players. One of the primary risks cited for all coworking players including the large global players is that the rental commitment to space owner are long term while the clients are short to medium terms.

Awfis’ co-working space

The post Awfis Plans to Expand to 400 Centres & 2,00,000 Seats in Next 3 years appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

The hospitality industry was then still stuck in non-innovative software solutions and traditional methods for keeping its productivity intact. However, Anil, Ravi and Leema knew that the industry can ill afford to languish in mediocrity forever by resisting digital revolution.

Hence the three founded AxisRooms with an aim to bring unprecedented revolution in the hospitality industry. Today AxisRooms offers various products to help hotels in bringing 360 degree improvement in their services – from hotel booking to revenue management. These products over the years have helped AxisRooms to get a firm grip in the market and the company is today working with some of the big names in the hospitality industry.

Company’s recent collaboration with Airbnb has once again demonstrated company’s ability to win big clients from the hospitality industry. It also recently won “Asia’s Leading Hotel Booking Solutions Provider” award in the prestigious 2018 World Travel Awards. It is the only Indian hotel technology solution provider to win this prestigious award for three straight years.

Techpluto caught up with Mr. Ravi Taneja, Co Founder & COO of AxisRooms, for a one-on-one interview. In this special interview, Mr Taneja has shed light on company’s past as well as existing challenges and also future prospects.

Q) How will you describe AxisRooms journey since its inception in 2011? 

Journey becomes challenging when you are a first mover in any space and more so when you plan to cater to an underserved or a long tail segment and that’s exactly what happened with us. Education and adaption had been the biggest challenge and once we overcame that, it became a smooth ride for us.

It took more than a year to acquire first 100 customers but then we grew at much larger scale Year over year (YoY). As we speak we have over 7000 properties using our platforms.

Q) Can you please shed some light on AxisRooms recent collaboration with Airbnb? 

Asia is on their expansion map and we are the earliest partners to work with them. The intent of this partnership is to solve the pain point of a small-medium hotelier/BnB/homestay to expand their distribution on Airbnb. We enable instant booking for listings on Airbnb. The partnership is currently at an initial stage and has a huge potential moving forward.

Q) In the initially days was it really hard to convince hotels and hospitality brands to buy your suite? 

Yes like I said being a first mover you take on the challenge of educating customers to use the product and building confidence that it will solve large pain point in their daily operations.

Q) How far has hospitality industry come in digital adoption since AxisRooms came into picture in 2011? 

A long way! Online penetration has increased multifold from 2011 to what it is now. Hotels are equally keen to have their strong presence on TripAdvisor, Google Hotel Ads and push transactions through their brand site as well.

Q)  Who, according to you, are AxisRooms main competitors?

STAAH, RateGain, SiteMinder, IDeaS and Duetto.

Q) Are there any major pain points in the hospitality industry that still remains unresolved and is AxisRooms trying out something innovative to resolve the same? 

The use of data and analytics to have more dynamism in pricing. A large set (>90%) of hotels maintain static pricing for their properties even when they are doing high occupancy or in the peak periods like long weekends, festive dates etc. The inability to switch prices dynamically encouraged us to start working on a tool which is an automated tool for hotels to change their room prices on the fly! We call this platform as “Revenue Management System”

Refer https://youtu.be/NJcA418DVPE

Q) AxisRooms hasn’t raised any funds since its seed funding in 2013. Are there any hindering factors that are stopping the company from pursuing an aggressive fundraising strategy? 

We raised another round of USD 2 Mn in 2017. We are planning to raise series B round of close to 12 Mn by 1st qtr of CY19.

There aren’t any hindering factors for right products with right market fit.

Q) Your projection about AxisRooms for the next five years? 

We are market leaders in India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and we will continue to grow in Asia. We expect to have 30000 hotel partners working with us and to be market leaders of South Asia, Middle East Asia and South East Asia.

Q) Looking back at your entrepreneurial journey, what advice or tips would you like to give to budding entrepreneurs?

I think it’s very important to stay focused on customer satisfaction. Knowing what they need and solving the right problem at a right cost is the key. Keep a very close watch on your CAC because that eventually defines the unit level profitability.

Q) Are there any role models that you personally look up to for seeking inspiration? 

There are quite a few: Elon Musk, Mark Benioff, and Sridhar Vembu.

The post AxisRooms aims to have 30,000 hotel partners in next 5 years appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

Since its inception in 2014 at Silicon Valley, California, Crowdera has been on a mission to revolutionize the global crowdfunding industry. At the helm of this ambitious mission is founder, Chet Jain. Crowdfunding is not an alien territory for Jain, who has earlier enjoyed a successful career as a serial entrepreneur in the U.S.

In his previous stint, Chet spearheaded a crowdfunding startup that was solely focused on educational sector. Now with his latest stint with Crowdera, Chet has broadened his focus beyond educational sector. His efforts have already yielded desirable results with Crowdera successfully supporting over 3000 campaigns and projects that are focused on various social causes.

Crowdera’s strong performance and a string of successful campaigns helped the company in securing an external funding recently. The funding has validated that this young startup is heading in the right direction.

Techpluto recently spoke to Chet, founder & CEO of Crowdera, about his company, the crowdfunding industry and his entrepreneurial pursuits. Below are some excerpts of this special interview.

Techpluto: You seem to have inherent passion for crowdfunding as you have spent considerable time in this sector? 

Chet Jain: While making money remains an important catalyst, I am also passionate about supporting social causes. I have always had a strong urge to give back something to the society. This made me think as to what is that one thing that I can do that will help in bringing desirable social changes in the society. The answer that I got was ‘crowdfunding.’

Techpluto:Can you please throw some light on some of the unresolved pain-points in the crowdfunding industry that prompted you to start Crowdera? 

Chet Jain: The common practice in crowdfunding is that the facilitator / platform charges a commission on donors’ funding before the sum collected is made available to the beneficiary. This commission charged on donors’ funding was a major pain point that led to the founding of Crowdera. Today, Crowdera is the world’s first truly free online crowdfunding platform. We don’t charge any commission on any donor funds. The underlying idea for making Crowdera a free platform is to make crowdfunding a fundamental right of the people.

In addition, we also try to bring campaigns and fundraisers at the forefront of crowdfunding exercise with the help of our several free and paid tools. These tools help fundraisers to leverage the true potential of our platform and thereby raise their fundraising abilities.

Techpluto:Since Crowdera is a free online crowdsourcing platform, what is your monetization strategy then?

Chet Jain: Crowdera monetizes through several paid tools, critical for enhancing the reach and effectiveness of a campaign. The paid tool model has already proved to be a sustainable business model for us.

Techpluto: Since the quantum of monetary transaction on Crowdera platform on a daily basis is huge, what are some of the steps that your company has taken to prevent the incidence of hacking?

Chet Jain: All payment facilities available on Crowdera are fully compliant with the international standards of security. Besides, we don’t store any financial data on our platform and hence, the risk of hacking doesn’t really arise.

Techpluto: Transparency is another big issue in crowdfunding industry. How does Crowdera ensure that every penny donated by donors has indeed been spent on the cause?

Chet Jain: Our platform tries to bridge the trust issue between fundraisers and donors by providing appropriate project specific updating facility. Through our platform, fundraisers can share real-time update about their projects with their respective donors. This exercise helps fundraisers in enhancing their credibility and their fundraising ability for future projects.

Techpluto: Do you see any scope of an integration of breakthrough technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain with crowdsourcing industry in near future?

Chet Jain: We certainly plan to integrate blockchain operations into our platform. However, blockchain operations will be introduced only in those markets where cryptocurrency transactions are legally permitted.

Techpluto: Today where does India’s crowdfunding industry stand in comparison with other countries, especially with developed countries?

Chet Jain: India’s crowdfunding industry is evolving very fast. However, compared to developed countries, India’s crowdfunding industry is restricted to urban areas. Currently, rural India makes no contribution as far as online fundraising goes.

Techpluto: Do you spot any major difference between Indian and foreign donors?

Chet Jain: A donor is a donor, irrespective of which country he or she hails from. What matters most is the depth of donor’s feelings for the cause he or she is donating for. Having said that, donors from certain countries, for example US, Canada and New Zealand are found to be more generous.

Techpluto:Crowdera recently raised Pre-series A funding. Any plans for raising series A funding anytime soon?

Chet Jain: Crowdera will soon look to raise next round of funds. In continuation to the pre-series A funding, we plan to raise series A funding next year. However, the company is neither in a hurry nor are we desperate to raise funds. We will be accepting funds from only those investors who completely believe in our company’s vision and mission.

Techpluto:Two skills that any entrepreneur needs to have to achieve success?

Chet Jain: All I would like to say is that entrepreneurs constantly need to focus on their purpose. They need to have clarity about their reason/s for choosing to tread the entrepreneurial path. I would also like to advice that one should not jump on the entrepreneurship bandwagon if their bread and butter is being compromised; meaning that entrepreneurship takes time to yield results – time during which a new entrepreneur’s basic requirements need to be fulfilled from alternative resources.

Technpluto: Any role models that you look up to for inspirations?

Chet Jain:  Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet. In India, I look up to Mr. RatanTata for inspiration. I personally admire the Tata Group for their philanthropic services.

Techpluto:Books that every budding entrepreneur ought to read?

Chet Jain: I feel entrepreneurs can learn several invaluable life lessons only from real situations and experiences. However, the one book that I would like to recommend every budding entrepreneur to read is Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.

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