Patronicity expands its platform outside Michigan

Since 2013, Patronicity has made a name for itself as a potent local crowdfunding tool in Detroit.

While many other crowdfunding platforms focus on scaling fundraising through a worldwide audience, Patronicity believes that many of those campaigns get lost in the white noise of too many projects. Their local-first business model helps each civic-and-community-minded project stand out.

This worked well for the Midtown-based startup—it brokered a deal with the state of Michigan to help promote local crowdfunding projects across the state and grew its staff to four. Now it's expanding further into the Midwest.

Patronicity has landed a new partnership helping Local Initiatives Support Corporation Indianapolis where it will provide the crowdfunding platform, which it likes to call crowdgranting, for projects targeting three neighborhoods in Indianapolis as part of the Great Places 2020 initiative.

"That's our first project outside Michigan," says Ebrahim Varuchia, president and co-founder of Patronicity.

Patronicity is working with more than a dozen Indianapolis area sponsors to transform strategic Indianapolis neighborhoods into dynamic centers of culture, commerce and community by improving quality of life and spurring urban revitalization.

"We are excited about this new partnership to help create better neighborhoods in Indianapolis—one of our great American cities," Varuchia says. "Since Patronicity is based in the industrial Midwest, Detroit, we know the struggles. But, being a part of Great Places 2020 means we can help Local Initiatives Support Corporation and their partners to unlock the power of crowdgranting to create more vibrant communities."

Patronicity is also working with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation chapters in Michigan on projects in Kalamazoo and Detroit. The startup is also looking to expand elsewhere in the Midwest and East Coast later this year.

"We're still ironing out the final details to grow," Varuchia says.

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.