Crowdfunding Platforms in India: Regulatory Gaps and Innovations
Diwakar H G
India’s crowdfunding ecosystem is experiencing remarkable growth, driven by digital penetration, smartphone adoption, and a burgeoning entrepreneurial culture. Platforms such as Ketto, Milaap, Wishberry, and Fuel A Dream have mobilized billions of rupees for causes ranging from medical emergencies and disaster relief to creative arts and early-stage startups. Yet crowdfunding in India operates in a regulatory environment that straddles securities law, digital lending regulation, data protection law, foreign exchange management, banking regulation, and consumer protection, without a unified framework governing its operations. This paper examines the structural landscape of crowdfunding in India as it stands at the close of 2025, the critical regulatory gaps that expose investors, donors, and platform operators to significant risks, and the innovations that industry stakeholders have pioneered to self-regulate and build trust. The study adopts an exploratory mixed-methods research design, combining a structured quantitative survey of 150 retail investors, 40 NGO operators, and 20 platform compliance officers with semi-structured qualitative interviews, analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (including a Chi-Square test of independence) alongside thematic analysis. Drawing on this primary evidence, recent legislative developments — including the RBI’s Digital Lending Guidelines and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — and comparative international frameworks, the study underscores the urgent need for a dedicated regulatory architecture that fosters innovation while safeguarding all participants