Wishberry

Jul 13, 2018

Wishberry raises Rs 10 Cr funding from Reliance Big Entertainment & others Wishberry, founded by Priyanka Agarwal & Anshulika Dubey, will use this funding to roll out India’s first crowd-financed film studio for low-budget cinema. Vishal Dutta  |  ET Bureau  |  July 13, 2018, 09:32 IST Wishberry , a crowd funding platform for filmmakers & creative artist, has raised Rs 10 crores in Series A funding led by Reliance Big Entertainment, Dr. Sunil Patil, Director on the Board of Scrabble Entertainment Ltd and 3one4 Capital. Founded by Priyanka Agarwal & Anshulika Dubey , Wishberry will support low-budget cinema by launching a film financing platform Wishberryfilms.in. The platform will help High Net-worth Individuals (HNIs) discover and invest in low budget regional & content-driven cinema, in exchange for a share of the film’s profits. “Low budget cinema, has a good opportunity to be monetized with the right strategy. Wishberry's plan to organize funding and distribution for such cinema is the need of the hour” said Shibasish Sarkar, COO, Reliance Big Entertainment. The Series A funding will also be used to expand the team and bring on board experienced talent in the film production & distribution space. Wishberry will continue its “Kickstarter-style” rewards-based crowd funding platform, which depends on fan funding for creative projects such as short films, documentaries and music videos, in exchange for non-monetary returns such as invite to the premieres, dinner with cast/crew and exclusive first access to the projects. So far, Wishberry has already raised over Rs 5 crores for four feature films; ‘Chuskit’, a Ladakhi film about paraplegic girl who is battling her condition to go to school, the film will be premiering at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy, one of the largest Children film festival in the world; ‘1 Missed Call’ a Marathi film set in the 90s that is a satirical tale of a village in India that witnesses its first mobile phone before it even gets electricity; ‘Chippa’ a Hindi ‘coming of age’ film starring child actor Sunny Pawar of the Oscar-winning ‘Lion’ fame as the main lead and a Tamil film called ‘Sethum Aayiram Pon’, about a struggling makeup artist in Chennai who visits her maternal village to do make-up, not for the living but the dead. Wishberry has raised these funds from a clutch of HNIs and has mobilized over 400 HNIs so far for investing in low budget cinema. “We aim to educate and mobilize more HNIs about the lucrative investment opportunity in these kind of films” said Wishberry statement. RELATED