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<keyword id="19483" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="IIM-ahmedabad">IIM Ahmedabad</keyword> just raised Rs 7.5 crore from alumni Raghunandan G, <keyword id="186752" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vishwavir-Ahuja">Vishwavir Ahuja</keyword> and Aprameya. While conservation, restoration and upgrade of the classrooms in the Heritage Campus is being supported by RBL Bank (Vishwavir Ahuja is the MD &amp; CEO of RBL bank), CR2 upgradation to state-of-art facility and maintenance at IMDC in the <keyword id="4731025" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="iim-a-new-campus">IIM-A New Campus</keyword> is being supported by co-founders of TaxiForSure — Raghunandan G and Aprameya R (PGP 2007 and 2008) — with funding of Rs 2.5 crore each. “RBL has significantly benefited from the quality education imparted at IIMA through several IIMA Alumni in the senior management team. RBL has always focused on excellence in the banking industry and is delighted to make a contribution of Rs 2.5 Crore for shared vision to support education excellence at IIM-A,” said Vishwavir Ahuja. Meanwhile, IIM-A director Prof Ashish Nanda said - “Alumni are a source of strength for the institute. They contribute in many different ways to support the Institute’s priorities. IIM-A deeply values their meaningful and significant contributions.” “Contributing to IIM-A is a proud moment for us as we owe so much of our success to this institute. Having graduated from this great institute, opened doors for us through our entrepreneurial journey. We could connect with IIMA alumni in the startup eco system who were strong guides during our TaxiForSure story and in fact, were our source of strength and also the worst critics to ensure that we always did the right thing,” said Raghunandan G and Aprameya R.

IIM Ahmedabad just raised Rs 7.5 crore from alumni

A 1983-batch alumnus of <keyword id="19483" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="IIM-ahmedabad">IIM Ahmedabad</keyword> recently decided to donate Rs 3.50 crore to his alma mater for refurbishing work under the campus <keyword id="69178" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="renovation">renovation</keyword> and conservation plan of the institute. The alumnus, <keyword id="4293874" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sukumar-Srinivas">Sukumar Srinivas</keyword>, managing director of <keyword id="4580831" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="shankara-building-products-limited">Shankara Building Products Limited</keyword>, contributed to refurbish Dorm-18 in which he lived in the second year of his postgraduate programme. The donation by Srinivas is one of the biggest donations given to the city-based institute by an alumnus in individual capacity. In a video message to the IIM-A community, he said - "I visited the campus after over 25 years. When I was walking around the campus, nostalgic moments came in, like good times spent with friends at places like dorms and classrooms. But one thing that really struck me that over the decades the campus, particularly the dorms, seemed to have deteriorated. I was really shocked by the condition of some of the buildings on the campus." "Looking at the condition of dorms, I thought that the institute has to really grow to live up to its reputation. It really needs to catch up to international standard. So, I took it up that I would become the sponsor of Dorm-18 where I had stayed in my second year of campus life," he added.

Meet Sukumar Srinivas, an IIM-A alumnus who donated Rs 3.5 crore to renovate his dorm

Globally Wharton, Yale and <keyword id="53675" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="harvard">Harvard</keyword> are the best known institutes whose students believe in giving back pickups once they are established in their life. And the trend seems to be catching up well with Indian business schools as well. This month, IIM-Ahmedabad has raised Rs 7.5 crore from its alumni <keyword id="186752" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vishwavir-Ahuja">Vishwavir Ahuja</keyword>, managing director of <keyword id="2179992" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="RBL-Bank">RBL Bank</keyword>, and Aprameya R and <keyword id="491843" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Raghunandan-G">Raghunandan G</keyword>, cofounders of TaxiForSure, to support infrastructure funding, according to an ET news report. "Alumni response has been overwhelming,” <keyword id="4796652" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="ajit-k-motwani">Ajit K Motwani</keyword>, head of the development office at IIM-A told ET. What helped was director <keyword id="1588161" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ashish-Nanda">Ashish Nanda</keyword>'s Harvard background, which helped foster the culture of alumni giving. The largest individual contribution was Rs 11 crore by an anonymous IIM-A graduate to support heritage campus infrastructure and entrepreneurship scholarships, reports ET. . "IIM-B has now entered a phase of high growth. The second campus is coming up in Jigani in <keyword id="6354321" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bengaluru">Bengaluru</keyword>. In this growth and expansion, alumni and corporate funding will play a significant role,” VK Menon, chief marketing and development officer at IIM-Bangalore told ET. "Alumni have volunteered funds toward construction of a swimming pool, introducing IIM Calcutta Case Research Centre, instituting scholarships and awards and commissioning the proposed sports complex”, <keyword id="4796653" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="uttam-kumar-sarkar">Uttam Kumar Sarkar</keyword>, dean of new initiatives and external relations at <keyword id="87135" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="IIM-Calcutta">IIM-Calcutta</keyword> told the financial daily.

IIM students are donating back to the institutes after graduating. Here’s how

India’s main opposition party The Indian National Congress has raised the stakes for the incumbent Narendra Modi government. On Monday, Congress president <keyword id="5268" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rahul-Gandhi">Rahul Gandhi</keyword> promised a minimum income guarantee for every poor person if the party won the 2019 elections. The Modi administration is also reportedly preparing to unveil its own income support in the upcoming interim budget. What is the promise from Congress President Rahul Gandhi? Congress has promised to give the country’s poor a minimum amount of money from the government as monthly income, but hasn’t specified how much it will be. Is it the same as universal basic income (UBI)? It is unlikely to be the same as UBI, which by definition would mean an assured amount of money from the government to every citizen of the country. However, minimum income guarantee may only be available to people below a certain income threshold. How much will it cost the government? It is difficult to ascertain the cost without the details of the programme. India’s total population is 1.36 billion, of which 22% of people below poverty line. Assuming that the government supports only those below the poverty line, it will still have to pay nearly 300 million people a fixed sum of money every month. India Ratings estimates that the BJP's potential income support scheme, to be released in its budget, could end up costing at least ₹1.5 trillion a year - or 0.7% of GDP - in the absence of other support schemes. Separately, SBI’s Chief Economist Soumya Kanti Ghosh recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-if-interim-budget-2019-replaces-subsidy-with-cash-transfer/articleshow/67658379.cms">estimated</a> that about 143 million farmers get one kind of subsidy or another. Accounting for possible omissions for lack of proper identification of beneficiaries and for those who have no land or documentation, the report said that the cost of giving direct cash transfer in lieu of subsidy will be about ₹1.2 trillion a year. Meanwhile, Pranab Bardhan, professor of graduate school at the department of economics, University of California, Berkeley, estimated that if a scheme like the UBI were to be implemented, the government would have to pay ₹16,000 per household and it would cost ₹2.1 trillion a year, or 1.25% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Government has 940 centrally sponsored schemes, according to a <a href="http://www.iitd.ac.in/CEAIITD/pdfs/3/MOOC_Sub&amp;UBI_14Jun_v10.pdf">report </a>from former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian in 2016. According to that estimate, the cost of giving every citizen some money every month would cost the exchequer about 4-5% of GDP. Who will bear the cost? If the central government raises taxes on the rich, the additional burden will be on the really well-off. However, it may affect the political donations that help parties fight elections. Raising the burden of middle-class taxpayer may have a political cost and won't win votes. If the government borrows money to fund additional expense, the burden will be on every taxpayer in the form of higher interest cost, weaker rupee and higher inflation. Can India afford such a huge burden? In theory, something like a minimum income guarantee can be funded by three ways: withdrawing or reducing existing subsidies or by raising taxes on richer sections of the people. So to give poor people given minimum income, would everyone else lose subsidies or pay more tax? Not necessarily. And certainly, no one will lose all subsidies. The subsidies available from the state governments will continue. If at all, only the central government subsidies may be withdrawn once it implements minimum income guarantee. So, if you live in Tamil Nadu or Punjab and get subsidised electricity, that will likely continue. Raising taxes will be a different matter. So which of the central government subsidies remain? As of now, the biggest subsidies that the central government offers are on food, fuel, fertilisers, liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cooking cylinders, as well as on tax and interest rates to specific sections of the population. One cannot say for sure how the government chooses to rationalise the existing subsidies. Can they withdraw food subsidy? Unlikely. Food subsidies are made available through the public distribution system, or ration shops, and are unlikely to be dismantled. 52.3% of all households purchased cereals from ration shops in 2011-12 compared to 27% in 2004-05, according to a Niti Aayog <a href="https://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/Final%20PDS%20Report-new.pdf">report</a> from 2016. It won’t be a politically savvy move to increase the cost of food for half of the country’s households in one go. India also has a law that gives every citizen a right to affordable food, with the National Food Security Act 2013. So no government can withdraw food security without going back to the Parliament for permission. Do we still get fuel subsidy? While petrol and diesel prices have been deregulated, kerosene prices are subsidised as it is used mostly by the very poor and bought at ration shops. While the cost of kerosene subsidy was budgeted in February 2018 at about ₹4,500 crore, withdrawing the support will only hurt the poorest. What about the subsidy on cooking gas? The subsidy on LPG cooking cylinders is already transferred online to the eligible buyers. Current prime minister Narendra Modi pushed millions of Indians to adopt LPG cylinders instead of coal hearths. [hyperlink] Now, it will be a politically sensitive decision for any party to withdraw benefits on basic necessities like LPG, especially after literally forcing them to use it. What about fertilisers? Fertiliser subsidies are once again availed by farmers and the recent rural distress will make it difficult for the government to withdraw any farm subsidy. Moreover, India <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/india-to-continue-importing-fertiliser-in-medium-term-ind-ra-study/article24679053.ece">imports</a> 28% of all the fertilisers it needs, according to India Ratings and Research. On one hand the global prices of fertilisers have been rising, and the weaker rupee has made these imported fertilisers even more expensive. Withdrawing fertiliser subsidy will make farmers really angry. What about health and education subsidy? Ayushman Bharat, a scheme that was launched in 2018, is a centrally sponsored insurance programme targeting 10 crore families across India who are either poor and deprived or identified as urban workers' families. It covers hospitalisation cost up to ₹5 lakhs a year, and is likely to continue. Primary health centres are at funded by state governments. Central government subsidises higher education in places like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, JNU etc, which are also likely to stay. What are interest subsidies? Often, the state-owned banks offer cheap loans to different sections of the population and the government bears the difference in interest rate. But don’t India’s farmers already get a lot of subsidies? Yes, India’s farmers are entitled to minimum support (MSP) price on their produce. Even if the market price of the crop is less than the MSP, the government is supposed to make for the difference. However, while many governments have either promised or increased the MSP, the <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/msp-kharif-crops-narendra-modi-minimum-support-price-gst-farmers-5270286/">net impact </a>on the farmers has been minimal. “No matter how hard the government tries, it cannot procure even 25% of the production of various kharif crops, except in paddy and cotton, as a robust procurement system does not exist for other crops,” experts at Indian Council For Research On International Economic Relations commented in July 2018. Therefore, withdrawing key subsidies, including those on fertilisers or interest on loans, will make the minimum income guarantee a zero-sum offer for the farmers. Will MGNREGA continue? Yes, it’s an employment guarantee scheme, not a subsidy. People are assured a certain number of days of work every year, for which they are paid. Is the Congress' promise a political gimmick? Minimum income guarantee will allow poor people to poor people to access basic necessities. Of course, this is assuming that the minimum amount given to the people is enough to cover their basic expenses. Further, the government will have to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to implement a massive programme like this in a complex country like India. The biggest problem in India is that it is very difficult to accurately identify those who need such a programme. So to analyse the merits of the promise, we will need more details. See more <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/Presidential-ego-or-a-dynasts-charm-what-Indian-voters-like-is-still-a-mystery-to-the-countrys-politicians/articleshow/67685811.cms">Presidential ego or a dynast’s charm — what Indian voters like is still a mystery to the country’s politicians</a>

Explained: What is minimum income guarantee and how it may work?

Do you have a little extra cash that you want to spend for a good <keyword id="22752" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="cause">cause</keyword>? Have you always wanted to help a cause but didn’t know where to put your money? Or do you own a company that focuses on corporate social responsibility and wants to make sustainable <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword>? One way of doing it is to donate the money, but there’s a small snag. The money you spend is gone for good – it can’t be used multiple times to help more people. But how about helping people as many times as you want, using the same capital you have spent in the beginning? And getting the entire amount back in monthly repayments? Call it sustainable giving or crowd lending, this kind of financial model enables you to do all these and one <keyword id="6404679" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="start-up">start-up</keyword> is leveraging it to enhance life at the <keyword id="140518" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="bottom-of-the-pyramid">bottom of the pyramid</keyword>. 
 Welcome to <keyword id="2108864" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Milaap-Social-Ventures">Milaap Social Ventures</keyword>, a social enterprise operating from Bangalore and <keyword id="6356662" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Singapore">Singapore</keyword>, which has developed an online crowd-funding platform to help the unbanked and the <keyword id="2108896" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Underprivileged-masses">underprivileged masses</keyword> in <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>. Simply put, <keyword id="6734688" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Milaap">Milaap</keyword> (it means ‘connecting together’ in Hindi) offers an RBI-approved micro-lending platform that allows the organisation to receive ‘loans’ from all over the world. Although <keyword id="2108903" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Individual-lenders">individual lenders</keyword> don’t get ‘financial returns’ on their investments (after all, you are putting in your money for a ‘good cause’), they get the principal back after the stipulated period. They can then re-deploy the money to help another person/project or cash out their principal. This helps create a <keyword id="2108904" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Continuous-funding-cycle">continuous funding cycle</keyword>, more effective and sustainable than one-time donations. Want to know more about how Milaap is connecting the haves and the have-nots in a bid to help implement life-enhancing projects? Here is a snapshot that captures the start-up’s vision and viability. 
 
Who runs Milaap (milaap.org): A team of three co-founders – <keyword id="1270675" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sourabh-Sharma">Sourabh Sharma</keyword> (<keyword id="5645" type="POSITION" weightage="100" keywordseo="CEO">CEO</keyword>), <keyword id="2108870" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Anoj-Viswanathan">Anoj Viswanathan</keyword> and <keyword id="2108865" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Mayukh-Choudary">Mayukh Choudary</keyword>. Sourabh, a graduate from the <keyword id="87108" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="National-University-of-Singapore">National University of Singapore</keyword>, started his first company, a mobile app start-up, straight out of college and ran it for more than two years. Next, he had a stint with corporate houses but soon joined hands with the other two co-founders to start Milaap. 
 Anoj holds a degree in Engineering from the National University of Singapore and he is also a StartingBloc Fellow (2010). Prior to co-founding Milaap, he had worked with SKS <keyword id="113684" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="microfinance">Microfinance</keyword> and focused on the energy and water services space. Earlier, he had been at <keyword id="2108863" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ReEx-Capital-Asia">ReEx Capital Asia</keyword>, a cleantech investment boutique in Singapore, and served as a fellow at D.light Design. He is also a founder member of the <keyword id="2108877" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Microfinance-Society-in-Singapore">Microfinance Society in Singapore</keyword> and leads the Milaap team in India. 
 Mayukh is an <keyword id="198748" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="electrical-engineer">electrical engineer</keyword> from IIT Madras and holds a PGDM from IIM Lucknow. He specialises in building technology-enabled financing models and worked as a <keyword id="2108874" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="financial-risk-consultant-in-Dubai">financial risk consultant in Dubai</keyword> before starting up Milaap. 
 
What inspired the venture: A sabbatical that changed life. In 2008, Anoj took some time off to be with SKS Microfinance and worked on a project to provide solar lanterns on credit in a few tribal villages in <keyword id="6357961" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Odisha">Odisha</keyword>. There he met Mayukh who was then working with the solar lantern-maker D.lightdesign. While on this project, Anoj noticed how <keyword id="6621346" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Small-loans">small loans</keyword> impacted life in a big way, especially at the bottom of the pyramid, and the idea of Milaap came to his mind. Developing a crowd-funding platform to connect India’s underprivileged with prosperous individuals and <keyword id="2108906" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Institutional-lenders">institutional lenders</keyword> across the globe seemed the right way to go about it. Anoj, who knew Sourabh from 2006 when he interned at his previous start-up Microappli, got him and Mayukh together to give shape to the idea of Milaap, which finally went live in June 2010. 
 
What’s the pitch: <keyword id="2108919" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Lend-a-little">Lend a little</keyword>, <keyword id="2108920" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="change-a-lot">change a lot</keyword> – that’s Milaap’s motto and it has started happening. “India has a large pool of people who don’t have access to traditional banking, but they do require <keyword id="2108923" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Funds-for-self-employment">funds for self-employment</keyword> and developmental initiatives. So we are leveraging the global reach of the <keyword id="6357247" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Internet">Internet</keyword> and trying to ensure that people – either individually or through their <keyword id="23045" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="social-networks">social networks</keyword> – can raise and lend capital to the millions who are unbanked and underprivileged,” says Sourabh. 
 Milaap is currently targeting over 700 million Indians who are mostly living in the rural &amp; semi-urban areas and unable to access formal sources of <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword>. According to the social enterprise, less than 5% of them are able to procure reasonably priced, life-improving loans for their small businesses, vocational training or other essential household assets, and that’s where the ‘loans’ raised by Milaap come in . 
 
How it works: At Milaap, the work is done in two stages. One part is <keyword id="2108932" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Shortlisting-borrowers">shortlisting borrowers</keyword> and publishing their profiles/projects on Milaap.org for crowd funding. Second part is deployment of the loans, monitoring their usage and ensuring timely repayments. Understandably, the second part is more cumbersome and requires a lot of offline work. Milaap has already tied up with 20-plus carefully selected ‘field partners’ (chosen from a wide range of <keyword id="164768" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Microfinance-institutions">microfinance institutions</keyword> or <keyword id="113682" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="MFIs">MFIs</keyword>, <keyword id="1417942" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Social-Businesses">social businesses</keyword>, <keyword id="2108940" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Vocational-training-institutions">vocational training institutions</keyword>, etc.,) to identify the most deserving candidates/projects for loans. Once they are selected, each <keyword id="2108943" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Borrowers-profile">borrower’s profile</keyword> is uploaded on the site, along with the fund raised till date and the amount still required for completing the loan. 
 Lending online is quite simple, though. Browse through the profiles to choose a borrower or select one from an impact area that you feel strongly about. You can also use various parameters such as cause, <keyword id="6379164" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="LOCATION">location</keyword>, <keyword id="2108946" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Project-urgency">project urgency</keyword>, <keyword id="2108948" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Repayment-period">repayment period</keyword>, women-centric projects to fine-tune your <keyword id="2108951" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Borrower-search">borrower search</keyword>. After the loan payment is made online, Milaap disburses the amount to the concerned <keyword id="2108956" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Field-partner">field partner</keyword> and the end-borrower gets it from the field partner. When repayment is done (end-borrower – field partner – Milaap), ‘credits’ are accumulated in your Milaap account. When the loan is fully repaid, you can either withdraw the money or roll it into another project. As for diehard do-gooders, there are even more options to <keyword id="2108961" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Start-fundraising">start fundraising</keyword> for the projects you prefer. 
 
Claim to fame: The concept and the build-up. According to the co-founders, crowd-funding is still a niche concept in the country but it is gaining traction gradually. Till date, Milaap has raised and disbursed over Rs 8.4 crore in 8,633 loans, impacting more than 46,393 people across 11 states in India. These loans are essentially raised to fulfil a wide range of <keyword id="2108963" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Developmental-requirements">developmental requirements</keyword> including <keyword id="566897" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="basic-education">basic education</keyword> &amp; vocational training, <keyword id="572926" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="seed-capital">seed capital</keyword> for small businesses, <keyword id="2109008" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Access-to-clean-water">access to clean water</keyword> &amp; <keyword id="49770" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sanitation">sanitation</keyword>, and <keyword id="2109012" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Safe-lighting">safe lighting</keyword>. Moreover, Milaap boasts 100% repayment of loans till now, indeed a rare feat when banks and big <keyword id="34503" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="financial-institutions">financial institutions</keyword> (<keyword id="4776620" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="FIs">FIs</keyword>) are suffering from the rise in bad loans. 
 The organisation is also focusing on <keyword id="2109025" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pan-India-expansion">pan-India expansion</keyword>. “Earlier, we were mostly operating in states like <keyword id="20154" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="tamil-nadu">Tamil Nadu</keyword> and <keyword id="13126" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Maharashtra">Maharashtra</keyword>. But now we are scaling up our operations and growing in states like Odisha, <keyword id="65591" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Mizoram">Mizoram</keyword> and even Gujarat,” notes Sourabh. 
 
Show me the money: While a borrower gets the entire sum offered by the lender, Milaap charges its field partners a 5% fee on the loans disbursed through them, to cover its operating costs. Its field partners, in turn, charge affordable interest from the end-borrower to meet their operating costs. Milaap also makes sure that all fees are disclosed upfront. 
 
Unlike many other ventures in this space, this social enterprise is a for-profit concern, but has not reached break-even yet. However, it has found some solid backers and already raised $1.1 million in Series A venture funding in May 2013. The money raised is being utilised for developing the online platform further and scaling up operations. “We want the number of lenders to go up to 100,000 in the next 18 months. That is the tipping point from where we can gather momentum and look at break-even,” adds Sourabh. 
 The <keyword id="2026013" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Series-A-round">Series A round</keyword> was led by Singapore-based <keyword id="969909" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Jungle-Ventures">Jungle Ventures</keyword>, an early-stage investment firm and an approved <keyword id="2109042" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Technology-incubator">technology incubator</keyword> under the <keyword id="2109044" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Singapore-National-Research-Foundation">Singapore National Research Foundation</keyword>’s Technology Incubation Scheme. Other investors included <keyword id="2109045" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Toivo-Annus">Toivo Annus</keyword> (<keyword id="170488" type="POSITION" weightage="100" keywordseo="co-founder">co-founder</keyword> of <keyword id="6377887" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Skype">Skype</keyword>), <keyword id="2072941" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LionRock-Capital">Lionrock Capital</keyword> (a Singapore-based <keyword id="2109046" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Family-investment-office">family investment office</keyword>), <keyword id="2108869" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Jayesh-Parekh">Jayesh Parekh</keyword> (Co-Founder, Sony Entertainment Television) as well as existing investor, <keyword id="1509738" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Unitus-Seed-Fund">Unitus Seed Fund</keyword>. The company is looking to raise a Series B round worth $3-5 million in the second half of CY2014. 
 Earlier, between August 2010 and January 2012, Milaap raised $250,000 in seed investment from Unitus Seed Fund, <keyword id="211897" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="First-Light-Ventures">First Light Ventures</keyword>, <keyword id="198636" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Vijay-Shekhar-Sharma">Vijay Shekhar Sharma</keyword> (Founder, <keyword id="338385" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="One97">One97</keyword>) and <keyword id="2108867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Rajiv-Madhok">Rajiv Madhok</keyword> (Founder, <keyword id="312199" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Oorja">Oorja</keyword>). 
 Interestingly, only 40% of the total lending amount comes from individual lenders (mostly from India, Singapore, the US and <keyword id="6356687" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="canada">Canada</keyword>) while 60% funding comes from institutional lenders, social funding and even family offices. But unlike <keyword id="2109229" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Small-lenders">small lenders</keyword>, large institutional and <keyword id="2109230" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="HNI-lenders">HNI lenders</keyword> get 3-4% return on their loans. 
 
Biggest challenge: There is competition from a few sites like <keyword id="1658892" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Kiva">Kiva</keyword> or Wishberry, but it is still a niche space and <keyword id="2109065" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Discoverability">discoverability</keyword> is the main challenge now, feels Sourabh. “We need to do more marketing and promotion to let people know such a platform exists. That will help us get more lenders on board, more field partners and subsequently, help more and more people get life-changing access to capital,” he says. 
 
A word for wannapreneurs: Take the plunge and do it. ‘Now’ is always a good time to do it – so don’t hesitate. I always feel that the risk part is overrated in entrepreneurship. You actually need the experience before you can succeed. So start early and make sure that you get the kind of experience you need for long-term success. Your first initiative may not be all that great but at least, you would have learnt from all your mistakes. Try fast and fail fast before you can succeed.

You Searched For "IIM donation" and got 5 results

IIM Ahmedabad just raised Rs 7.5 crore from alumni

Anushree Singh

Meet Sukumar Srinivas, an IIM-A alumnus who donated Rs 3.5 crore to renovate his dorm

Anushree Singh

IIM students are donating back to the institutes after graduating. Here’s how

BI India Bureau

Explained: What is minimum income guarantee and how it may work?

Sriram Iyer

This Social Enterprise Runs A Global Crowd-funding Platform; Eyes $3-5 Million In Series B Funding

Sanghamitra Mandal

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