More than a million people were displaced and around 500 people lost their lives in the recent Kerala Floods. The biggest challenge after the floods was to send relief material to the affected people. Hyderabad based social enterprise Donatekart stepped in to play a crucial role. DonateKart connected volunteer donors with victims during this unfortunate event.
There were many ways to donate money but none to actually send supplies like food, blankets, and medicines. More than 200 tonnes of relief material worth Rs. 2 crores was raised through Donatekart in a week’s time thus helping 50,000 families.
Donatekart has today announced a fundraiser of $360,000 (Rs 2.55 crores) from a group of investors in the seed round led by LetsVenture. Shanti Mohan, Founder of LetsVenture has joined the board of Donatekart as part of the round. Investors in this round include M S Unnikrishnan ( MD & CEO of Thermax ), Pravin Gandhi (Founding Partner of Seedfund), Arun Diaz (Advisor of Avishkaar), Pradeep Nair (Regional Director of Ford Foundation) and a few others.
Incubated in T-Hub, Hyderabad & were previously a part of Zone Startups India Accelerator, Donatekart was founded in 2016 by NIT Nagpur Alumni Anil Kumar Reddy & Sandeep Sharma. It is India's first social enterprise which is providing a unique platform for social organizations by redefining charitable donations via an online platform to easily procure products they require.
People in India are usually hesitant to donate money to charities because they’re worried if their hard-earned money will be put to good use. Donatekart eliminates this worry as the donors directly donate products, thus creating complete transparency. There is also 100% accountability as the donors are provided with timely updates of how their products are being used. Donatekart provides its services for free unlike other fundraising platforms thus making sure all the money donated go to the end beneficiary.
Shanti Mohan , CEO & Founder of Letsventure said “ Donatekart addresses the concern many donors have around % of donation which would actually go into a cause and transparency around this. With Donatekart, 100% of the donations goes to the beneficiaries and Donors are completely aware on how their donations are utilised. This puts Donatekart in an unique position to be the go to online donation marketplace. I am also excited about the team and their commitment to build a marketplace that can create larger impact for donors and for non profits"”
In the last 20 months since launch, Donatekart has assisted 450+ NGOs all over India to raise 5 Crore worth of products from 35,000+ Donors.
Anil Kumar Reddy, Co-Founder & CEO of Donatekart said, “ Indians traditionally prefer giving in kind than money to charities and we are making the whole giving experience seamless & efficient using a technology platform.With the vision to create a better tomorrow, Donatekart is making sure that Doing Good is easy and convenient for everyone “
The capital raised will enable Donatekart to strengthen its technology, scale the team and launch new products like Recurring giving, Employee giving & Corporate CSR giving etc. They also have plans to take this platform to other developed markets like US, UK and raise at least 100 Crores worth of donations in the next 3 years.
Pradeep Nair, Regional Director of Ford Foundation said “ Charitable giving in India is just 0.2% of GDP compared to 2% of GDP in US. I am really excited about Donatekart and it’s potential to change the giving landscape in India using their in-kind donation model “
Donatekart has worked with corporates like HDFC Bank, Yes Bank and enabled their employees & customers give using their platform. They have won many awards like Nasscom Social Innovation Award, The New Indian Express 40 Under 40 etc for their unique model which enables donors to directly donate products to NGOs/Charities online instead of money.
More about Donatekart-
Donatekart clams to be India's most reliable platform to donate to charities online. Founded by NIT Alumni, Donatekart has won many awards like 40 Under 40, Nasscom Social Innovation Award etc and is incubated in T Hub, Hyderabad & Zone Startups, Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai. We are first of a kind platform which enables donors to directly donate products to NGOs/Charities online instead of money.
In the last 20 months since launch, we could help 450+ NGOs all over India raise close to 5 Crore worth products.30,000+ unique donors used our platform to channelize donation to charities of their choice.