Xiaomi on Wednesday launched a new programme in India called 'Mi Crowdfunding'. Notably, Xiaomi’s been crowdfunding out-of-the-box products for years in China, giving birth to various devices outside of the mainstream.

Just like any other consumer-driven funding program like Indiegogo, Kickstarter, the Mi Crowdfunding platform aims to provide a dedicated space to products or ideas that still need money to go into mass production and finally launch in open markets. Xiaomi will keep posting a curated list of "innovation-driven" products that it will sell only when a certain number of people are interested or technically speaking, if the product is 100% funded within the stipulated timeline. If a particular product fails to meet the funding gaol in defined timeline then the product will not be shipped and the customers (backers who supported the product) will get their money back.

As of now, Xiaomi has put up two products that it is planning to bring in India -- Mi Bluetooth Audio Receiver and Mi Selfie Stick Tripod, which are priced at Rs 999 and Rs 1,099 respectively.

The Mi Selfie Stick Tripod is able to rotate 360 degrees and comes with an adjustable grip to "accommodate the largest smartphones like Mi Max 2." The product comes in only one Black colour variant, measures 45x49.5x190mm, and weighs 155 grams. Xiaomi promises that it will be shipped within 10 days of successful completion of the project.

The Mi Bluetooth Audio Receiver meant to provide wireless music, comes with a single key function that turns on the earphones, connects to Bluetooth, plays and pauses music, and answer calls as well. It comes with Bluetooth 4.2 to connectivity, and a headphone amplifier chip.

Basically, the idea behind crowdfunding is that instead of asking a single company or an investor to put in large amounts of money into your project, such platforms let you ask a large number of people to invest a relatively small amount.

Though Crowdfunding is not as popular as in the US, nevertheless there are many new and emerging crowdfunding platforms such as Ketto, Milaap, Impact Guru, Crowdera, Desiredwings, Bitgiving and FuelADream. Last year, Desiredwings,a reward based crowdfunding platform, acquired Catapooolt.com to together become the largest crowdfunding platform with various diversified successfully funded campaigns to its portfolio.

According to SEBI, the investment knowledge of Indian citizens is not at par and hence popular models like equity crowdfunding and investment crowdfunding are not so popular in India. Last September, SEBI had asked crowdfunding platform to include a disclaimer stating that crowdfunding platforms are neither stock exchanges nor authorized by the capital markets regulator to solicit investments.

News Source - BGR India

Top Image - BTVi.in
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