Are you an independent filmmaker and short on cash? Call Catapooolt

For Sarthak Dasgupta, winning the Sundance Institute Mahindra Global Filmmaking award in January 2013 for his independent film The Music Teacher was a memorable moment. As congratulatory messages poured in, the 42-year-old’s classmate from KJ Somaiya College ofEngineering, Mumbai, Yogesh Karikurve, reached out with a fine proposition.

“Yogesh was starting a crowdfunding platform that would also enable filmmakers to raise funds. Sometime back I had written a script for a feature presentation called Cutthroat and felt it would be a good movie to test on a crowdfunding platform,” says Dasgupta.

No biz like showbiz
Karikurve, 40, was building something distinctively new for India - a platform for independent filmmakers to raise money from anyone interested. He had discussed this concept for two years with his 36-year-old friend Satish Kataria, who had pioneered crowdfundingin India through his earlier venture Springboard Ventures. Initial talks revolved around getting global platforms to collaborate in India till they spotted a bigger opportunity.

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The Indian film industry was granted an ‘industry’ status in 2001 which enthused various corporate entities and led to a spurt of film and media schools.

“With limited capacity for studio films, an independent film force was born. Moreover, with the advancement of technology and digital platforms, Indian talent finally found new avenues to express themselves. However, a lack of understanding of business economics and paucity of funds prevented newcomers from nurturing their dreams,” says Kataria, who estimates the independent film industry at Rs 1,500 crore, if regional movies are taken into account. Alongside, high net worth investors (HNIs) were investing in economically unfeasible projects.

Kataria took the lead to foster talent and started Catapooolt in July 2012, a Mumbai-based online crowdfunding platform targeted at independent filmmakers.

Karikurve joined him in October that year and together they raised Rs 20 lakh from friends and family to set up shop. Catapooolt intends to fill the gap between talent and funds, domestically and internationally, and connects project owners to those that share similarpassion. “We are currently focusing on projects in entertainment and sports,” says Karikurve, associate director, Catapooolt, who is also the founder of Magus Entertainment, a consultancy firm that markets Indian films abroad.

Nuts and bolts
The founders describe their model as the second generation of crowdfunding. “Instead of loading projects and letting owners raise funds on our platform, we go a step ahead and helpthem market their projects by planning strategies for various platforms,” explains Kataria, Managing Director, Catapooolt. Projects can be uploaded at any stage of production, he adds.

Catapooolt has eight projects on its platform, three of them being films, and has raised Rs 10.67 lakh as of date. Forty percent of funds are from Delhi and Mumbai, 30 percent each from overseas and non-metro cities respectively. The platform charges 15 percent of the entire amount raised from its primary source of revenue. Kataria, unwilling to discloserevenues, says that other supplementary revenue streams could be events and a media platform to promote projects. It plans to assist 100 projects by the end of this fiscal and raise approximately Rs 2 crore through crowdfunding.

Kataria feels that the latent demand for services Catapooolt offers under one roof is high because Indians by nature are community driven. “The advent of digital technology and online platforms makes this task easier by bringing groups of people from various geographies anddiverse interests together,” says Kataria.

Karikurve adds that the advent of new technology and social media has changed business models of the entertainment sector. While cost of promotion and advertising has decreased thanks to digital technology, it is simultaneously driving up the cost of getting audience’sattention due to proliferation of media platforms, he says.

According to Dasgupta, crowdfunding in the film industry works if you have a huge fan following or a strong script and a subject that resonates deeply with a group of people. Since the concept is new in India, one cannot expect to raise huge amounts through this model. “I thought of testing the market and raising a small amount through crowdfundingand raised Rs 10 lakh from Catapooolt, which is one fifth the total money I probablyneed,” he says.

Beyond Indian shores
Noted filmmaker and executive director of Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), Roger Garcia, heard of Catapooolt last October when he met Karikurve at Mumbai FilmFestival. Intrigued by a crowdfunding site focused on Asian projects, Garcia started following them closely since. “It gives independent filmmakers another potentially powerful source to finance films that can be configured at different stages of the process. For Asian independent filmmakers, it also means a higher propensity to reach potential financialparticipants who are more focused on Asia,” says Garcia.

Garcia, now an active adviser to Catapooolt, hopes it can spread pan-Asia once it consolidates its Indian base.

“There are opportunities in greater interactivity between filmmakers and potential investors through the website such as web-conferencing or pitching specific projects to a select group of interested investors,” says Garcia.

The platform also has online and offline initiatives to educate talent at the grassroots level. “We’re developing India’s first crowdfunding guidebook and will hold a series of educative initiatives to help project managers learn about crowdfunding campaigns. We’re hand-holding projects and helping each one draw their crowd funding strategy,” says Kataria.

This article first appeared in Entrepreneur India magazine.