Social Entrepreneurs collaborate for PregRX, world’s first paper-based Pee & See pregnancy product

In the lead up to International Women’s Day 2019, on the 8^th March, Gurgaon-based Deep Bajaj, Founder of PeeBuddy, India's First Design Patent Protected Female Urination Device for women, and the Sirona range of Unique Intimate & Menstrual Hygiene Products, has launched yet another breakthrough innovation, this time in the home pregnancy testing space. Called PeeBuddy PregRX, the product will be one-of-a-kind unique funnel with strategically-integrated HcG test strip.

With PregRx,women can now
simply pee and instantly check their pregnancy status. Not only does it
eliminate the need for any plastic bottle/tumbler/dropper, but also makes for
an easy-to-use and eco-friendly home testing process for pregnancy.

Deep has collaborated with ImpactGuru.com, India’s largest crowdfunding platform for personal causes, in a bid to facilitate a larger conversation around women’s health & hygiene, and to ensure successful market distribution for PregRX. Details of the PregRX fundraiser can be found here: https://www.impactguru.com/fundraiser/help-deep-bajaj

Making of PregRx

The current process of home pregnancy
testing is very cumbersome, wasteful, and regressive. A lady is expected to sit, pee, and capture urine in a
bottle/tumbler, before using a dropper and putting a few drops onto a plastic testing
cassette. The current process leads to plastic overuse, for every pregnancy
test involves plastic in some form or the other. The use of so many elements
also makes home pregnancy testing uneconomical, while impacting the accuracy of
the results. Most women also find the current process extremely nauseating.

Deep
Bajaj, Founder – PeeBuddy: Sirona,said, “As
a start-up, we exist to solve intimate and menstrual hygiene issues that Indian
women face, but which are either not discussed or not addressed. We
successfully solved the issue of wiping dirty toilet seats with PeeBuddy, which
sold a million units, and have also introduced many category-defining products
under the Sirona range. These include India’s first herbal feminine pain relief
patch which frees women from hot water bottle/pain killers, Sirona Disposal
Bags for clean & discreet disposal of sanitary products, Sirona Tampons both
with and without an applicator, Sirona Menstrual Cups, etc.”

“In one of our focus groups, young
mothers shared their stories about home pregnancy testing and called it
cumbersome & annoying! We decided to look deeper into the process and realised
that we could significantly streamline it by integrating HcG test strips with PeeBuddy,
thereby simplifying the entire process in terms of usage while reducing
wastage. With PeeBuddy PregRx, women
would now simply be able to test pregnancy anywhere without needing any other accessory,”
Deep added.

Utilization
of funds through crowdfunding

Deep said, “The product is ready and has already been tested extensively. However, as this product is for all women, we need everyone’s help to spread awareness about this innovative solution. The funds raised through crowdfunding on ImpactGuru.com would be used to develop other variants and a part of it would also go towards marketing.”

Khushboo Jain, Co-Founder and COO, ImpactGuru.com said,

Crowdfunding has evolved to become an important medium especially for social innovators in creating awareness and raising funds for various causes. We at ImpactGuru are thrilled to help PeeBuddy PregRX in a bid to impact the lives of millions of women in India and abroad. I hope that many people especially women come forward to support this wonderful cause and help make it the leading product in this category.”

About PeeBuddy: Sirona  

Sirona is an award-winning intimate & menstrual hygiene product brand providing solutions to ‘ignored & unaddressed’ feminine hygiene woes and wellness-related problems. Formally incorporated in 2015 by Delhi-based entrepreneur Deep Bajaj (Founder) & Mohit Bajaj (Co-Founder), Sirona was an outcome of the numerous bad experiences that the women around them suffered, in terms of basic and intimate hygiene issues that remain largely unaddressed in a country like India. The company is widely popular for being the maker of India’s first portable, disposable & highest selling female urination device, PeeBuddy.

Impact Guru Raises $500K in Seed Round from RB Investments and Fundnel

Impact Guru, a Harvard Innovation Lab incubated fintech company, has announced a seed round of $500,000 from RB Investments, a Singapore based venture capital firm, and Fundnel, a Southeast Asia-based private investment platform. Impact Guru and Fundnel have also created a first in the world strategic partnership between a social/rewards crowdfunding platform and a private investment platform.

The capital raised from RB Investments and Fundnel and the strategic partnership with Fundnel will enable Impact Guru to scale social/donation crowdfunding (online) for nonprofits, social enterprises and personal causes; and leverage Fundnel’s private investment network for facilitating equity or debt funding (offline) for startups and social enterprises in India and Southeast Asia. Fundnel will select and invite startups and/or social enterprises that have successfully leveraged Impact Guru’s crowdfunding platform in India to demonstrate traction to Fundnel’s network of family offices, venture capital funds, and accredited investors for international investment and for further scaling within Southeast Asia. Both Impact Guru and Fundnel will engage in the exchange and collaboration of relevant know-how in crowdfunding, technology and deal syndication.

The partnership with Fundnel will particularly help Impact Guru to extend its influence beyond India to attract more philanthropic and/or investment capital from NRIs (Non Resident Indians) / PIOs (Person of Indian Origin) abroad especially those residing in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia which are estimated to be 2.5mm. The funds will also be utilized to expand Impact Guru’s core team, to accelerate product development and sales and marketing efforts particularly for rewards crowdfunding for startups and social enterprises, and to build a larger community of donors, customers, and investors.

Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Impact Guru said, “The traditional charity and social enterprise fundraising model in India is broken. The alternatives to online fundraising are outdated, expensive, and ineffective. We firmly believe that a full stack crowdfunding solution that combines social, rewards, and investment crowdfunding will make Impact Guru a platform of choice for individuals, nonprofits, social enterprises, or startups for all their fundraising needs - be it small or large. RB Investments has a proven track record of helping its portfolio companies scale their businesses in India and Southeast Asia and has already backed several high profile startups. We are certain that RB Investments’ expertise and networks will help us accelerate our growth.”

Impact Guru is pleased to announce two additions to its Advisory Board: Harvard Business School Professor Ramana Nanda, an expert in entrepreneurial finance and management, and Gaurav Gupta, Regional Director for Asia, Dalberg, a thought leader in the social sector. They will provide mentorship, and strategic guidance to the Impact Guru management team along with other existing members of the Advisory Board, that includes Sam Raymond, lead crowdfunding strategist at World Bank’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit; Calvin Zhang, Managing Director, JPMorgan Asia Pacific; Anthony Oundjian, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group; David Back, co-founder of Zoomcar, a Sequoia portfolio company; and Huzaifa Khorakiwala, CEO of Wockhardt Foundation.

Impact Guru has already partnered with nonprofits such as World Vision India, Oxfam, SOS Children's Village, Habitat for Humanity; CSR departments of Tata, Godrej, and Wockhardt; impact focused organizations such as Dalberg and Asha Impact; international Indian community organizations such as TiE in a relatively short span of time since its launch in August 2015. Impact Guru is the only crowdfunding platform in the world that allows people to give to causes without making a direct financial contribution through its SMILE innovation. SMILE stands for Social Media Impact Linked Engagement. Impact Guru connects the mere act of sharing a social cause via Facebook to be equivalent to a donation of upto Rs 1,000 per share depending on certain factors.

Impact Guru Raises $500K in Seed Round from RB Investments and Fundnel

Impact Guru, a Harvard Innovation Lab incubated fintech company, has announced a seed round of $500,000 from RB Investments, a Singapore based venture capital firm, and Fundnel, a Southeast Asia-based private investment platform. Impact Guru and Fundnel have also created a first in the world strategic partnership between a social/rewards crowdfunding platform and a private investment platform.

The capital raised from RB Investments and Fundnel and the strategic partnership with Fundnel will enable Impact Guru to scale social/donation crowdfunding (online) for nonprofits, social enterprises and personal causes; and leverage Fundnel’s private investment network for facilitating equity or debt funding (offline) for startups and social enterprises in India and Southeast Asia. Fundnel will select and invite startups and/or social enterprises that have successfully leveraged Impact Guru’s crowdfunding platform in India to demonstrate traction to Fundnel’s network of family offices, venture capital funds, and accredited investors for international investment and for further scaling within Southeast Asia. Both Impact Guru and Fundnel will engage in the exchange and collaboration of relevant know-how in crowdfunding, technology and deal syndication.

The partnership with Fundnel will particularly help Impact Guru to extend its influence beyond India to attract more philanthropic and/or investment capital from NRIs (Non Resident Indians) / PIOs (Person of Indian Origin) abroad especially those residing in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia which are estimated to be 2.5mm. The funds will also be utilized to expand Impact Guru’s core team, to accelerate product development and sales and marketing efforts particularly for rewards crowdfunding for startups and social enterprises, and to build a larger community of donors, customers, and investors.

Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Impact Guru said, “The traditional charity and social enterprise fundraising model in India is broken. The alternatives to online fundraising are outdated, expensive, and ineffective. We firmly believe that a full stack crowdfunding solution that combines social, rewards, and investment crowdfunding will make Impact Guru a platform of choice for individuals, nonprofits, social enterprises, or startups for all their fundraising needs - be it small or large. RB Investments has a proven track record of helping its portfolio companies scale their businesses in India and Southeast Asia and has already backed several high profile startups. We are certain that RB Investments’ expertise and networks will help us accelerate our growth.”

Impact Guru is pleased to announce two additions to its Advisory Board: Harvard Business School Professor Ramana Nanda, an expert in entrepreneurial finance and management, and Gaurav Gupta, Regional Director for Asia, Dalberg, a thought leader in the social sector. They will provide mentorship, and strategic guidance to the Impact Guru management team along with other existing members of the Advisory Board, that includes Sam Raymond, lead crowdfunding strategist at World Bank’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit; Calvin Zhang, Managing Director, JPMorgan Asia Pacific; Anthony Oundjian, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group; David Back, co-founder of Zoomcar, a Sequoia portfolio company; and Huzaifa Khorakiwala, CEO of Wockhardt Foundation.

Impact Guru has already partnered with nonprofits such as World Vision India, Oxfam, SOS Children's Village, Habitat for Humanity; CSR departments of Tata, Godrej, and Wockhardt; impact focused organizations such as Dalberg and Asha Impact; international Indian community organizations such as TiE in a relatively short span of time since its launch in August 2015. Impact Guru is the only crowdfunding platform in the world that allows people to give to causes without making a direct financial contribution through its SMILE innovation. SMILE stands for Social Media Impact Linked Engagement. Impact Guru connects the mere act of sharing a social cause via Facebook to be equivalent to a donation of upto Rs 1,000 per share depending on certain factors.