Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Page 1
Abstract:
Government of India introduced series of financial sector reforms in the capital market to boost the
economy since its globalization and liberalization policies came into force in 1991-92. These reforms
include opening of a dedicated stock exchange for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and
steps towards Crowd Funding which is just the opposite of mainstream approach to business finance.
Traditionally, to raise capital for starting a business or launching a new product, enterprises need to
prepare a business plan, conduct market research and place the idea in front of possible funding
agencies and comply with a host of formalities. These funding sources include banks, investors, venture
capital firms, etc. Crowd funding platform, on the other hand, is an internet-inspired means of raising
money which provides a channel for MSMEs to raise funds through capital market to finance projects,
with a focus on small entrepreneurial ventures. This paper is an attempt to understand the types of
crowd funding, get insights into the regulations and technical aspects to be complied with, status of
crowd funding in India and a review of performance of crowd funding as on date. It also throws light on
its legal issues, challenges faced, policies and relevance in context of Indian Economy and Indian
regulations.
Page 2
Introduction:
The Government of India introduced the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMED)
Act, 2006 in terms of which the definition of micro, small and medium enterprises are as follows:
A micro enterprise is an enterprise where investment in plant and machinery does not exceed Rs. 25
lakh; a small enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in plant and machinery is more than Rs. 25
lakh but does not exceed Rs. 5 crore; and a medium enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in
plant and machinery is more than Rs.5 crore but does not exceed Rs.10 crore. The MSME sector covers
non-agricultural sector and is crucial to the Indian Economy in terms of employment, export and
production. According to All India Census of the Sector, Micro Small & Medium scale enterprises
contribute more than 40% of Indias exports and also 45% of the industrial output.
Crowd funding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of
people. It is a method of raising capital through the collective effort of friends, family, customers, and
individual investors. In crowd funding, funds are raised through an e-platform or social platform for a
specific business venture. It is an alternative source of fund-raising for SMEs, micro organizations and
start-ups in India. Crowd funding is the opposite of the traditional approach to business finance.
Business plans, market research and prototypes are first prepared when someone wants to raise capital
to start a business or launch a new product, under the traditional financing route. The idea is then sold
to a limited pool of wealthy individuals or institutions. The funding sources typically include banks, angel
investors, and venture capital firms, thus limiting funding options to a few key players. Firms needing
funds, put forth the idea to a large audience of investors, with the objective of attracting at least a few
of these potential investors to fund the project. Failure to approach at the right investor or firm at the
right time, would lead to an unsuccessful attempt to raise money. On the other hand, Crowd Funding
Platforms (CFP) such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Crowd funder, gives the entrepreneur, a single
platform to build, showcase, and share ones idea. This approach significantly streamlines the traditional
model. The fundraising window is usually finite (90 days, for example) and the fees and rules differ
across the different platforms. The funds accumulated by the crowd funding platform do not promise
the investor a share nor does it ensure the repayment of the funds on the success of the venture.
Although crowd funding can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and
other methods, approved internet platforms are popular. The modern crowd funding model is generally
based on three types of participants: the project initiator who proposes the idea or project to be funded,
Page 3
individuals or groups who support the idea, and a moderating organization (the "platform") that brings
the parties together to launch the idea. Crowd funding has been used to fund a wide range forprofit entrepreneurial ventures, artistic and creative projects; and not-for-profit or communityoriented social entrepreneurship projects. Crowd funding is a type of crowd sourcing which is the
process of getting work or funding, usually online, from a crowd of people. The word is a combination of
the words 'crowd' and 'outsourcing'. The intention is to take work and outsource it to a crowd of
workers. In 2015, it was estimated that worldwide, over US$34 billion was raised by crowd funding.
History of crowd funding:
The origin and evolution of crowd funding can be traced to the European and American investors about
three centuries ago Crowd funding gradually spread to parts of the world. The growth tabulated as
under:
Table 1
1700s: Irish Loan Fund
Dr.
Mohammad
microfinance,
Yunus,
launched
the
a
pioneer
program
in
Ireland.
Dr.
Mohammad
Yunuss
original
fund
Page 4
2000/2001:
The US tour of the British rock band Marillion Crowd funding options grew rapidly giving rise to the
is funded by their U.S. fan base by raising misconception that such avenues are new.
some $60,000 themselves online to give to the
band.
KIVA -Gives individuals the chance to provide small PROSPER -The first peer-to-peer lending marketplace in
loans to entrepreneurs in poor areas around the the U.S
world. Overall rate of return is greater than 98%.
2008:
2009:
Indiegogo - enables people to donate funds easily KICKSTARTER - A funding platform for creative projects
by removing the middleman.
rewards.
2012:
President Obama unveils the Startup America FUNDABLE - First equity crowd funding platform to
initiative.
www.impactguru.com
www.ketto.org
www.dreamgirlfoundation.ngo
www.wishberry.in
www.thebinnews.com
www.start51.in
www.bitgiving.com
www.milaap.org
Page 5
www.funddreamsindia.com
Crowd funding offers a number of benefits over the traditional funding methods. SMEs and startups
that have difficulty in raising money through traditional channels like capital market (stock exchange),
banks and financial institutions can effectively use crowd funding platforms to meet their funding needs.
Investors also benefit from crowd funding as they get to explore new investment for portfolio
diversification. Traditional funding market, dominated by a few large players, is facing competition
crowd funding platforms. Some of the benefits of crowd funding are enumerated below:
Reach By using a crowd funding platform like Fundable, access to thousands of accredited investors
who can help in the fundraising campaign can be availed.
Presentation By creating a crowd funding campaign, individuals / firms can go through the invaluable
process of looking at their business in detailits history, offerings, prospective market, value
proposition etc
PR & Marketing From launch to close, individuals / firms can share and promote their campaign
through social media, email newsletters, and other online marketing tactics in an effective manner.
Validation of Concept Presenting ones concept or business to the masses provides an excellent
opportunity to validate and refine offering made. As potential investors express interest and ask
questions, gaps in concept can be identified and improved upon.
Efficiency A big advantage of crowd funding is its ability to centralize and streamline the fundraising
efforts. Building a single, comprehensive profile to which one can funnel all prospects and potential
investors, helps eliminate the need to individually follow up with multiple interested parties, hence
saving duplication of efforts.
Literature Review:
Customers play an important role in the crowd funding model. Consumers have a role to play in the
entire crowd funding chain such as target consumers (Barksdale and Darden, 1971), a key information
sources (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990), co-producers (Fisk et al., 1993), partners for innovative purposes
Page 6
(von Hippel, 1986), key resources and co-creators of value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and also as an
investor (Andrea Ordanini, Lucia Miceli and Marta Pizzetti, A. Parasuraman, 2011). Crowd funding
typically tries to resolve the issues of marketing and finance together. Where crowd funding is
applicable, the participants investing through crowd funding would have to be permitted, as Accredited
Investors (such as QIBs, HNIs and Eligible retail investors), by SEBI, in the Indian context.
According to Schwinbacher and Larraide (2011), crowd sourcing helps a firm in outsourcing activities, to
make a sale of its product to the general public (the crowd) with the help of an open call using the
internet as a medium. A related concept is crowd sourcing. Consumers volunteer to contribute to
production processes and create value. Crowd funding can be viewed as combining concepts of crowd
sourcing and microfinance.
The reward of crowd funding can range from a thank you note to a pre-purchase option, which allows
investors to receive the product that the entrepreneur is making, often at a reduced price (Griffin 2012).
There are various types of crowd funding. Reward based and equity based platforms are higher in
numbers in Europe and North America. Since the enterprises have a challenge in the form of lack of
access to capital, they raise the funds out of personal savings or loans from friends and relatives, credit
cards, etc. Scarcity of funding could result in promising projects not getting initiated, costing an
economy jobs and loss of potential innovations (Devsh Mitra, Bradford, 2012).
In a joint study between York University, Toronto, Ontario, and University Lille Nord de France, in Lille,
France, published on June 2, 2014, two types of reward-based crowd funding were discussed
1.
"'Keep-it-All' (KIA) where the entrepreneurial firm sets a fundraising goal and keeps the entire
amount raised regardless of whether or not they meet their goal,
2.
'All-or-Nothing' (AON) where the entrepreneurial firm sets a fundraising goal and keeps nothing
unless the goal is achieved.
The study's researchers analyzed 22,875 crowd funding campaigns, with monies raised ranging between
US$5,000 and US$200,000. The research concluded that all-or-nothing (AON) fundraising campaigns
involved substantially larger capital goals, and were much more likely to be successful at achieving their
goals.
Page 7
In its review Inc.com publication explained that potential investors were more inclined to support "allor-nothing strategy" initiatives in which substandard product would not be released if the funding goal
was not achieved. The Inc.com review suggested that "AON" projects typically provide more detailed
information on the campaign.
Crowd funding has become a major source of capital to kick-start new ventures. Professor Jaideep
Prabhu, University of Cambridge has stated that We increasingly live in a frugal economy where even
small teams can now develop and commercialize ideas that only large firms could do in the past. Crowd
funding is a crucial component of this frugal economy. Now start-ups with relatively few resources can
access small amounts from large numbers of ordinary people to bring their ideas to life and to markets.
Categories under which crowd funding has successfully raised funds:
The chart shows the funding volumes raised under different categories by crowd funding platforms in
the year 2013 and 2014 . It is clear that crowd funding increased by 165.57% in the year of 2014 over
2013 numbers. It is also noticeable that the fund raised for Business & Entrepreneurship in 2014,
increased 34.57% in a year. This is a good sign of a healthy economy.
Page 8
Research Methodology:
To meet the captioned objectives, information was captured from related articles published in
Magazines, Journals, related books and official reports. Also, secondary data has been collected as far as
possible from relevant websites.
Types of Crowd funding:
There are a variety of crowd funding methods as enumerated below. Selection of crowd funding method
depends on the type of product or service offered and the goals for growth.
01. Donation-Based Crowd funding
Donation based crowd funding is a type of crowd funding where there is no financial return to the
investors or contributors. Donation-based crowd funding examples are fundraising for disaster relief,
charities, nonprofits, and medical bills. A form of charity crowd funding is civic crowd funding, in which
funds are raised to improve public life and space. For example, in the US, Kickstarter, Indiegogo are
some of the platforms which support donation based crowd funding.
Page 9
Page 10
spend scarce computer resources on maintaining the protocol network, which may or may not exist at
the time of the crowd sale, and may require substantial development effort and eventual software
release before the token is live and establishes a market value. Examples of such crowd sales
are Augur decentralized, distributed prediction market software which raised US$4 million from more
than 3500 participants
06. Litigation
Under litigation crowd funding plaintiffs to reach out to hundreds of their peers simultaneously in a
semi-private and confidential manner to obtain funds by way of donations or providing a reward in
return for funding. Investors get a stake in a claim that they have funded and can also get back more
than their investment, in case of success of litigation.
1. SEBI guidelines allow only Accredited Investors to participate in crowd funding. These include
Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs); companies incorporated under the Companies Act of India,
with a minimum net worth of Rs. 20 crore; High Net worth Individuals (HNIs) with a minimum
net worth of Rs. 2 crore; and Eligible Retail Investors.
2. A startup needs to be less than 4 years old and cannot raise more than Rs. 10 crore in a year.
3. For receiving crowd funding, a company must not be a subsidiary or related to any other
company which has a turnover in excess of Rs. 25 crore.
4. The firm must not be listed on any Stock Exchange.
Page 11
5. Companies engaged in real estate and activities not permitted under industrial policy of the
Government of India are not allowed to raise money through crowd funding.
6.
The issuer cannot raise capital from multiple platforms, and cannot loan out the funds.
7. An issuer needs to disclose certain details of the company, its functioning and the venture it
seeks to start.
Page 12
$34.44
$16.20
$1.47
$2.70
$6.10
Year
As per the Massolution Crowd funding Industry 2015 Report, total global crowd funding industry raised
funds to the tune of $34.44 Billion in 2015. Other lending numbers were: P2P Lending- $25.1 billion,
Reward- $2.68 billion, Donation- $2.85 billion and Equity- $2.56 billion.
By early 2015, over 1,250 CFPs were in operation, providing capital and promoting entrepreneurship
across various sectors. According to Massolutions latest annual industry report, global crowd funding
expanded by 167 percent in 2014 to reach $16.2 billion funds raised, from $6.1 billion in 2013. Until
2014, the US and Europe dominated the crowd funding space. The strong growth experienced in 2014
was to a large extent driven by the emergence of Asia as the latest major crowd funding hub. The region
experienced a staggering 320 percent increase in 2014 to post $3.4 billion raised, ahead of Europe
($3.26 billion) but still well behind North America, which raised $9.46 billion. A pictorial presentation of
these data is as given below:
Page 13
Source: Chance Barnett, CEO of Crowdfunder.com, in a piece on Forbes.com, June 19th 2015
By 2016, the crowdfunding industry likely to have more funding than Venture Capital, according to
report by Massolution.
In India, crowd-funding platforms are fall into three broad categories namely Social causes,
Business/Startups and Arts & Culture.
Page 14
Listed below in Table 2 are some of the India-based Crowd-funding platforms available for Indians along
with their statistics:
Table 2
Crowd funding sites in India- Opportunities and Facts
Payment
Funds raised
Upfront
so far
listing fee
Category
processing
Site fee
fee
Social
BITGIVING
causes
35 lacs INR
Free
4.18 Million
Social
USD as loan
disbursed to borrowers
MILAAP
causes
disbursed
Free
(quoted on website)
KETTO.ORG
All
4 crores INR
Free
5%
5%
INR
START51
All
16,95,062
Free
5%
FUNDDREAMSINDIA
All
Free
5%
3.95%
4.5
WISHBERRY
All
crores Rs.
INR
plus taxes
processing
NA
Standard-10%
Premium-15%
CATAPULT
All
75 lacs+ INR
Rs. 1499
Advanced-15% plus
Source:http://www.myonlineca.in/startup-blog/crowdfunding-sites-in-india-opportunities-and-facts
Page 15
Table 3:
India's most funded sectors in 2015
S/L No
Sector
Amount(in Millions)
$900
Shopping: Paytm
$890
$133
$150
$125
Healthcare: Practo
$120
$110
$100
$165
$60
10
0
Findings:
Page 16
4. Start-up companies and small businesses struggle to borrow money from commercial banks.
Crowd funding is helping to fill the huge gap in funding for local businesses.
5. Crowd funding helps to fund ventures that commercial banks do not want to deal with.
6.
SEBI has declared over half-a-dozen digital Equity crowd funding Platforms (ECP), including
prominent ones like Grex, Lets Venture, Termsheet, Equity Crest and Tracxn, as unauthorized,
unregulated and illegal. According to SEBI, only recognized stock exchanges can provide
electronic platforms where equity and other corporate securities could be listed and traded.
Conclusion:
Crowd funding is also termed as democratic finance as it does not involve traditional banking
intermediaries; the borrowers and lenders interact directly using the online crowd funding platform.
Crowd funding therefore has been challenging traditional banking models. Stringent banking norms, lack
of trust in financial institutions and the emergence of social media have created a favorable
environment for the crowd funding industry.
Small businesses that are considered very risky by traditional funding channels are supported by crowd
funding. Crowd funding platforms have become significant, especially after the 2008 financial crisis,
after which banks and financial institutions have implemented stringent lending norms. According to
research conducted by Biz2Credit, an online funding platform for SMEs (small and medium enterprises),
as of January 2014, more than 80 percent of loan applications were rejected by big banks; for small
banks the rejection rate was over 50 percent.
One of the salient features of crowd funding is the focus on transparency. It is being debated whether
crowd funding can replace some of the traditional banking functions for borrowers as well as lenders.
However the crowd funding industry is in a nascent stage and will have to develop competency in
handling a variety of complex lending and investment related issues. As crowd funding platforms start to
implement regulations and processes for due diligence, their cost of operations will only increase, thus
reducing the present cost advantage they enjoy over traditional funding channels. CFPs can however
compel banks to adapt their business models in order to provide more transparent products.
Page 17
Start ups and new business are looking at crowd funding as an avenue for raising funds, as CFPs are a
good starting point for new generation companies. However this space needs to have appropriate
regulations to protect investor interest, ensure transparency and cost effectiveness in operation, while
at the same time provide some take away for the platform provider. Caution must be exercised to
ensure that over regulation does not kill creative and innovative ideas of entrepreneurs.
References:
1. Chirputkar A.V., Saxena S and Tarkas J. Crowd Funding as a Tool of Business Transformation to
Micro Enterprises in India- A Conceptual Framework. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol
8(S4), 115-125, February 2015. ISSN (online): 0974-5645, ISSN (print): 0974-6846.
2. Giudici G, Guerini M and Lamastra C. R. Why Crowdfunding Projects can succeed: The Role of
Proponents Individual and Territorial Social Capital. SSRN Electronic Journal, April 2013.
3. Kirby E and Warner S. Crowd-funding: An Infant Industry Growing Fast. Staff Working Paper of the
IOSCO Research Department, 2014.
4. Mitra D. The role of crowd funding in Entrepreneurial Finance. Delhi Business Review. 2012 Jul
Dec; 13(2):6772.
6. Prinsha K. A Study on Crowd Funding and its Implications in India. Indian Journal of Research, Vol:
5, Issue: 1, January 2016, ISSN: 2250-1991.
8. RBI
(2016).
Consultation
Paper
on
Peer
to
Peer
Lending.
Website
9. Sachitanand R. Crowdfunding platforms for start-ups: Little awareness & legal hurdles may slow
down
promising
start.
ET
Bureau;
2014
Apr
20.
Available
from:
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-04-20/news/49266205_1_aditi-gupta-rs-5-lakhplatforms
Page 18
11. http://crowdexpert.com/crowdfunding-industry-statistics/
12. http://crowdfundingdeepimpact.in/
13. http://dailyaimless.blogspot.in/2014/03/crowd-funding-there-is-little-bit-of.html
14. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/money/crowd-control-sebi-warning-turns-offcrowdfunding-tap-for-startups/articleshow/54202702.cms
15. http://internationalbanker.com/banking/
16. http://trak.in/tags/business/2014/06/18/sebi-norms-crowdfunding-india/
17. http://www.indianweb2.com/2015/01/20/no-regulations-crowdfunding-directives-startup-fundingsays-sebi/
18. http://www.savings-banks.com/experience/Pages/Crowd-funding.aspx
19. http://www.supportbiz.com/articles/top-story/crowdfunding-becoming-new-funding-option-indiansmes.html
20. https://tailwindcrowd.com/how-banks-can-benefit-from-crowdfunding/
21. https://whitefusemedia.com/blog/charity-digital-roundup-2nd-august-2013
22. https://www.fundable.com/crowdfunding101/history-of-crowdfunding
23. https://www.quora.com/Which-was-the-first-Indian-crowd-funded-movie
Page 19