1. Building Partnerships Through
Fund Raising
The Aavishkaar Experince

2. The First Step – Individual Investors
• Aavishkaar raised the first US $ 1 Million from
120 individuals
• It took four years of painstaking follow up to
collect the first million
• Individual Investors have the capability and the
appetite to take much higher risk and can take
decisions based on an Individual persuasion.
• Flip side is the amounts are small and number of
investors are large and unweildly

3. Private Foundations – The Next
Destination
• The private foundations need to be sure that
you have the right ideas and the right
reputation
• The Individual Investors money demonstrate
to Private foundation that you have the
reputation
• The individual investor money should have
been used to create a proof of concept so that
Private Foundation can follow

4. Government Banks/ Local Institutions
• Once you have gained some size with
Individual Investors and Private
Foundations, Government Banks or Local
national institutions start taking interest.
• Media visibility and awards are quite an
important milestone in garnering their interest
• These institutions normally support what they
think is in their mandate and should not pose
reputational risk of failure

5. Development Finance Institutions
• These are must for scale up.
• They are difficult to penetrate as they want
you to be near viable and strong management
team … the earlier three investor segment can
prepare you well for them
• You need to be prepared well but once you
have attracted DFI capital, your size would
grow up. DFI initially invest small amounts but
can scale up their investments significantly

6. Private and Commercial Investors
• Any institution that is socio- commercial, at some
point must try to raise commercial money
• Strong reputation would allow you to manage
contradictions between social and commercial
goals
• Private investors are last to enter, start with small
capital but can increase their exposure
significantly once convinced of your approach
• Very wary of Risk and want strong process and
system for risk management

7. Final Word
• The sequence that I have laid above is most
likely but depending on your circumstances
you can change deal with these stake holders
in parallel as well
• What matters finally is your ability to convince
them to invest in you and your confidence in
your ability to make your organization
successfull