Dear Friends,
This is one of the better ventures I have come across, leveraging the power of community to empower entrepreneurs.
Its a matchmaking project, connecting entrepreneurs who need loans with lenders who can offer loans.
If an entrepreneurs needs Rs. 50,000 as loan, he can receive it from multiple lenders , maybe in smaller chunks of Rs. 5000 each. Similarly a lender can spread his loan of Rs. 2 Lacs, across maybe 10 or 20 businesses.
Last week statistics revealed on the site are inspiring to know, the model seems to be clearly working.
Close to 4000 lenders have joined, 1400+ entrepreneurs have been funded collectively amounting to Rs. 2.5 crores.
This idea needs to spread fast, it is currently being positioned to help poor people with a zeal to do business, but who lack basic resources.
To ensure that the people do not misuse, the project works with local micro finance companies.
Surprisingly in India, there is only one field partner listed, it is Delhi based Somaiya Group.
Pls, Pls share and forward the details about the venture to lenders, micro finance agencies, as well as worthy entrepreneurs.
And yes, the link to the project is http://www.kiva.org
Regards,
Ajay Sanghani
Founder, ITVidya.com
Cell : 098200 20753
- Sponsor a Business - February 28, 2008
- IdeaCamp update - January 19, 2007
- IdeaCamp in Gurgaon with Alok Mittal - January 7, 2007
Hello
I too am interested in peer to peer lending and the utilization of venture capital by entrepreneurs.
I am in the process of forming a Investing/VC club in our province with like minded individuals.
My goal is to find a safe and reliabe way of attaining a 10% return on our investments and we can generate and put cash directly into the hands of an entrepreneur with a good idea and the experience, energy to make their busienss grow.
However the challenge will be how to make this legal and binding. From a practical stand point I would not have a prayer in getting my investment let alone a ROI back from here.
How could this challenge be overcome without giving all the profits to a middle man?
kind regards
Steven R Denault
steveca4@hotmail.com
I think there is already something similar in the pipeline in India. I stumbled upon a site called http://www.dhanax.com/ yesterday and I think it is working on the same lines as kiva is.
Anish, good idea to engage as many networks like TIE and other to intermediate and bring the element of trust and local due diligence.
I have also written to officials NEN, perhaps they can build a similar platform to sponsor student initiatives, and academic instituitions can be the agencies for field validations and updates.
If NEN can’t do for any reason, someone should take this up as a big business opportunity, plus it will be a great cause, as students with gems of ideas are not having any takers and hundreds of ideas die or get postponed.
Regards,
Ajay Sanghani
Founder, ITVidya.com
Cell : 098200 20753
Hi,
The idea seems impressive, a few months back there was a post on venturewoods regarding the feasibility of introducing a peer-to-peer lending site for the Indian market and many were skeptic about the prospect of the business model in the Indian context. But i believe there exists a good opportunity for a peer-to-peer seed funding model for entrepreneurs in the Indian market.
May be the Indian angel network / Mumbai angels / Seed Fund can take the first step in this regard. The company can use the service of angels / NGO’s / TIE chapters(hmmm…slighty overboard huh?:) ) to organise field staff who can do the due dilligance. My idea is a portal where angels or any one who wanna invest in startups / business can search for potential opportunities / entreprenuers and then loan them small amounts.
So who’s gonna take up the initiative !