Ketto: Key to Tomorrow

Introduction

When covid hit the world, it turned many lives upside down. While few people enjoyed a laid back retreat, there were millions who struggled to make ends meet. Thousands of children were orphaned and lakhs succumbed to lack of adequate health infrastructure. Covid or not, there are always situations where people are in dire need of money for health treatment. On the flip side of this scenario are people who want to offer genuine help but don’t find trustworthy avenues to do so. Varun Sheth, a college graduate from Narsee Monjee, realized that this trust gap can be bridged with the help of technology and that is when Ketto was born.

Founder and the company (The Road not taken)

Varun was doing very well for himself in the world of finance notching up deals worth 1000+ crores. But in retrospect, he felt his work was not adding value to society and the real world. During this period of emotional turmoil, he was deeply influenced by the work of Vinod Khosla the moghul of Sun Microsystems and his efforts through the Khosla Impact fund. Following the footsteps of Mr. Khosla and his internal zeal to give back to society, Varun along with bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor founded Ketto, a crowdfunding platform where anyone across the globe can raise funds for a range of causes. This technological leap was aimed to bring the thousands of philanthropic Indians to donate on the internet.

Crowdfunding meets Indian Traditions and Values

India boasts a deep-sense of community and the nature of giving is embedded in our culture. The shared tradition of communal harmony has paved the way to family philanthropy for ages now. It’s likely that most people have experienced this first hand. It’s very often that families in India provide monetary and in-kind support to house-helps, drivers and the needy around. This trend jumped multiple folds during the lockdown with family philanthropy corpus tripling to ₹12,000 crores and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 1.6%.

Despite the inherent values, the social sector in the country remains underserved compared to other BRICS nations and a poor ranking of 117th. Most philanthropic channels in the country are unaccounted for leading to this disparity. Moreover, there’s a lack of trusted channels for donation when compared to countries in the west. Ketto set out in 2012 to transform the space with its online crowdfunding platform.

The landscape has since evolved to a ₹8000+ crore volume in just 7 years with Ketto growing over 4 times during the lockdown period. With people coming together in times of hardship, Ketto empowered millions and highlighted the fact that intent has always been strong, only avenues were lacking which are now being fulfilled.

How does Ketto work

With more than 2 million supporters, 30 thousand fund raisers and ₹400 crores raised, Ketto is Asia’s most visited crowdfunding platform. It works on a simple aggregator model. Either the beneficiary themselves or anyone on behalf of the beneficiary can register on the platform. With correct proofs and documents in hand, a fundraising campaign can be launched in less than 10 minutes. A personal campaign manager or an account manager will be allocated for a fundraiser who helps with amplifying the campaign and making it reach millions of donors.

Ketto has brought strong positive social change in the areas of child education, health care, women empowerment, farmer welfare and animal care. It has also worked with organizations like Teach for India, Akshaya Patra, Child Right and You.

But how does a platform that helps people in need raise money and create a social impact, earn for itself? Ketto, is a for profit organization and it charges platform fees depending on the plan that has been adopted and it varies from 3% to 5% of the donations raised. The platform has generated an annual revenue of 9.36 million dollars in the year 2020 and has raised an amount of 15.5 million dollars in its series B funding. This has been the scenario till 2020, however, Ketto announced that it is moving to a Zero Platform fee model and going to depend entirely on donations. “About 500 million people in India donate every year, but the way they do it is different. With the transparent system that we’ve created, I see more people coming online to donate in the future," the founder says.

How Covid-19 flipped the Startup and improved its relevance?

Covid was unprecedented and Ketto in its pursuit to have high social impact changed the way it operated. Having democratized capital for the masses in need, Ketto wanted to be people's ray of hope during tough times and they waived off the customer fees and worked round the clock to provide seamless customer experience.

They provided additional on-call support to help set up campaigns, quick documentation processing, tracking their money flow and ensuring it reached them. Social Startups believe in collaboration more than competition and they partnered with NGOs and other crowdfunding platforms for shared fundraising campaigns.

The last two years brought out the sheer power of crowdfunding platforms and the impact they can have on our society. Once considered a BIG NO from investors now came into limelight and it increased investors confidence in the idea and the power it holds in not only bringing a social impact but also the large population it connects. With data as the new fuel, investors are finding avenues where most people want to be.

Funding, Competitors and Future

What started with a bootstrapped fund of ₹2.5 lakhs has raised over ₹100 crores in the last Series B funding. The founders have also managed to win grants worth 1 crore from the Wharton India Economic forum. With a strong portfolio of 34 major investors on board, Ketto has set a target to grow 15x in 3 years. With the market getting more competitive by the day with 4 other major players, Ketto still boasts over a million monthly visitors with a 10% average growth rate in page views.

The competitors in the market charge a platform fee between 2-10% and the revenue model of crowdfunding platforms remains the same. What differentiates each of the players is the user experience and the reach. While 80% of campaigns on Ketto are health related, every player specializes in a category they deem most fit. The crowdfunding marketplace is likely to witness a shift in the revenue model with advancements in technology enabling a blockchain based tip fee structure and/or an advertising based model on the platform.

Ketto’s success doesn’t come without a fair chunk of challenges and the founders have maintained a transparent policy in showcasing where the funds are being used to avoid controversies. After a successful fundraiser, the success story finds its place on the platform for the donors to experience the impact they have brought. In an era of pandemics and wars, we are indebted to social startups like Ketto to be the torch bearer of humanity.

Credits: Mehul Sampath, Susmitha Devisetty