Chingari- Original India Short Video App raised $1.3 million (Rs.10 crores approx.) through seed capital funding from venture capital firms- AngelList India, iSeed, Village Global, LogX Ventures, and NowFloats.
So far, 5,00,000+ users are creating entertaining content using the Chingari App on a daily basis. The Aatma-Nirbhar App lets you search your favourite video, browse through the feed, get creative an also enables sharing on other social media applications.
The company’s CEO said they will use the funds to hire more talent in order to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform, and make Chingari engaging and more consumer focused platform.
Chingari also pays content creators a 30 % cut from what it makes from brands and ensures transparency as well as maximum data privacy principles.
Made in India social media apps have risen to fame like a phoenix from the ashes of Chinese born app TikTok after Government banned it along with 58 other apps.
Seed Funding and Start-ups:
The term ‘seed’ suggests that the funds are the initial foundation to a corporation which is newly born and at some point will bloom into a dense profitable green tree. It’s also called seed capital or capital.
Seed funding basically refers thereto initial amount raised by a start-up to materialise its idea. Funding is that the fuel on which a business runs. A business can take different avenues to achieve funding, and quite one option is often used. The chosen funding will depend upon the business’ desire to be in debt, how solvent the business owners are at the time the business is founded and therefore the amount of cash a business will got to launch and maintain itself through a spread of events.
Just like how we plant a seed and nurture it from a sprout to a plant, a start-up also requires proper nurturing, and that’s where seed funding comes into the image.
Seed funding is an investment made during a company in exchange for equity therein company. it’s almost like risk capital with the most difference being the source. risk capital generally comes from institutions and is usually much greater in amount than seed capital.
Seed funding may be an aid to initiate things off the bottom levels.
Think of it as getting tons of smaller investments instead of one large investment. Seed funding is additionally very flexible and may be used for several things. So, it follows that a start-up gets seed funding by selling small chunks of equity within the company to a hopefully- high volume of individual investors.
How can start-ups get seed funding in India?
Each start-up may plan to raise seed funding at a special time, but the method of the way to raise a seed funding round remains more or less an equivalent, no matter the world.
Angel Fund Investors:
Sometimes, investors close to make angel networks or groups where they each invest small amounts within the idea or the corporate during the first stage financing round.
Corporate Seed Funds:
Usually, mega-corporations and tech giants are trying to find how to take a position in new innovation that they’ll spot within the market. This source of funding brings big visibility for the start-up brand and is typically an early indication of a purchase within the future. Tech giants like Apple, Google and Intel back start-ups regularly with capital.
Incubation programmes:
Incubators generally provide small seed investments and offer services like office space or management training for start-ups’ that are at a really early or idea stage. Many incubation programmes don’t take equity from the start-up but do offer support beyond just funding.
One of the most important challenge is convincing investors to bet money in start-ups that are just at the thought stage.
Micro risk capital Funds:
Apart from the above listed options, micro VCs or micro risk capital firms, have garnered quite lot of attention in recent times. These firms are into an investment of institutional money when the start-up is within the seed stage itself.
International Philanthropic Investors:
When fixing a business that’s dedicated to addressing a social issue, one among the most questions is the way to get seed funding for such a start-up. this is often where start-ups could approach international philanthropic impact investors, who act as seed investors for start-ups with social impact.
Crowdfunding and Business Revenue:
Crowdfunding is where the merchandise is showcased to potential investors through stages of development. With quite 500 crowdfunding platforms currently active, this has become one among the foremost popular avenues of seed funding.
Bootstrapping or Personal savings:
Bootstrapping or personal savings is where founders invest their own capital. This might increase the financial pressure but there’s no pressure on founders to return borrowed money or debt repayments.
With the recent Make in India campaign, seed funding has gained importance in India also. However, many start-up founders are still not aware on the way to get capital to start out a business, which is why it’s important to try to thorough research to be prepared for facing all types of obstacles one might encounter.
Indian start-ups that have raised funds through seed funding in recent times:
- Transit-focused payments start-up CityCash raises $1 million in seed funding.
- Seed and early-sate risk capital fund Endiya Partners has announced receiving a commitment of Rs 75 crore (approx. $10 million) from the International Finance Corporation.
- Power distribution grid start-up Probus raises seed funding from Unicorn India Ventures.
- Incomlend Pte Ltd, which operates a platform focussed on trade finance and global invoice trading, has raised $20 million (Rs 150 crore) during a Series A funding round.
- The round within the Singapore-based company was led by Sequoia Capital India
- Content start-up WYN Studio has now secured INR 50 lacs during a seed funding round from the India Angel Fund.
Chingari recently emerged because the top winner within the “Social” category of “Aatma-Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge” which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day with the aim of showcasing India together of the leading app developing countries globally.
The Aatma-Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge showed that a lot of Indian app developers are now embracing the challenge of developing internationally competitive apps.
Global tech giants also appear to possess taken note of the immense potential of the domestic app development ecosystem.
According to fresh reports, Microsoft is getting to invest about $100 million within the home-grown regional language social media app ShareChat which previously sums Twitter as an investor as well.