Gurgaon startup founders extend crowdsource campaign, aim to collect 20cr to procure 3000-oxygen concentrators

Gurgaon: As India fights a ravaging second wave of COVID-19, a community of Gurgaon based startup entrepreneurs has launched ‘Mission Oxygen’ to support Delhi and National Capital Region hospitals with oxygen in light of scarce supply. Through the initiative, the entrepreneurs are importing Oxygen Concentrators (OC), which concentrate oxygen from the ambient air and supply it to the patient.

While the program initially started with a target of raising INR 2.5-Crore to procure 500 OCs, an overwhelming response from more than 10,000 global donors has allowed it to raise more than 10-Crore – nearly 4-times the initial target – for 800 additional OCs. With the target funding now set at INR 20-Crore, the program aims to procure at least 3000 OCs.

To further streamline procurement, the community has brought on board logistics partners, such as Spicejet, DHL, Flexiport and Delhivery, who are scheduled to deliver the first shipment of 500 OCs by this week and remaining 800 by next week.

Varun Aggarwal, Founder, Designhill said, “As a motivated community of founders, who are concerned and want to do something for our nation, we took a decision on Friday, April 23 to start a donation program ‘Mission Oxygen’ via Ketto, a crowdsourcing fundraiser platform to raise INR 2.5 Cr and source 500 Oxygen Concentrators from China. These concentrators could then be donated to needy hospitals and nursing centres and help save many lives.”

The fundraiser has seen support coming from Bollywood celebrities including actor Alia Bhatt, Taapsee Pannu, Abhishek Bachchan, and Kunal Kapoor along with public figures, such as Devraj Sanyal.

Rahul Aggarwal, Co-Founder, Designhill said, “The community has also donated an Oxygen Generation plant, which will be setup at Deen Dayal Upadhaya Hospital. This will be the first Oxygen Generation plant to be setup by the Delhi Government during this time.”

To contribute to the crowdfunding initiative citizens can go to https://www.ketto.org/fundraiser/mission-oxygen-helping-hospitals-to-save-lives

The initiative has been started by Democracy People Foundation and is being driven by Snehil Khanor of TrulyMadly, Mansha Kaur of Heart On My Sleeve, Hubhopper founder Gautam Raj Anand, Rahul Agarwal and Varun Agarwal of Designhill, Rahul Hari of Satvacart, Uday Anand of Mycrushfit, Gautam Ghai of Sourcefuse, Cuttlfish founder Shikher Gupta among others.

The founders have urged citizens to come forward to join the national effort in saving lives given massive rise in COVID-19 cases.