Investment platform Groww raises Series A funding of $6.2 M led by Sequoia India

Bengaluru-based data science based investment platform Groww has raised Series A funding of $6 million led by Sequoia India. This round also saw participation from Propel Venture Partners, Kauffman Fellows and Y Combinator. The funds will be used to launch new products, and build the platform's technology.

In July last year, Groww had raised $1.6 million funding led by Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightbridge Partners, Kairos and others. With this fund raise, the total funding raised by the company will be $7.8 million.

Lalit Keshre, Co-founder and CEO, Groww says, millennials are increasingly moving towards financial products instead of gold and real estate as a means of investment. He adds that there are close to 200 million people with investable income in India, and only 20 million investors. In a press statement shared by the company, Lalit said:

"The only way to bring the next 180 million on-board is by making investing simple. We want to create a platform that has all possible investment solutions within a tech-enabled, easy-to-use interface, and all this while providing the best-in-class user experience above all else. That is the fundamental premise of our offering."

Started by four ex-Flipkart employees - Lalit , Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal - in April 2017, Groww offers direct access to mutual funds, and a seamless and transparent approach to investing via its mobile app and web platform. In a previous conversation with YourStory, the startup claimed to have close to 200,000 unique visitors on its platform around February. From April to December last year, the company claimed to have processed close to 1,00,000 transactions on its platform.

The startup has been recognised by the BSE for having one of the "highest transaction in mutual funds" on a platform. Speaking of their investment in the platform, Ashish Agrawal, Principal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors said:

“We are seeing a strong growth in the Indian investor base, which is fuelling the market need for a better and inexpensive investment platform like Groww. With its strong product sensibilities and focus on the millennial investor, Groww aspires to be the preferred product for retail investors in India. Sequoia India is excited to lead the Series A investment and join the founders' journey to transform retail investing in India.”

When it comes to the Indian financial technology ecosystem, wealth management is increasingly attracting investor attention, after lending. Earlier this month, wealth management startup Scripbox raised Rs 151 crore as part of its Series C funding led by existing investor Accel Partners, along with participation from Omidyar Network, and NLI Investment Fund.

In September, last year, Paytm launched its direct mutual funds investment platform (app) Paytm Money. The platform kickstarted with close to 25 AMCs and more than 850,000 users registering for early access. Apart from all of these there also is Times Internet's ETMONEY, it is platform for investments, loans and expense management,

While Gurugram-based MobiKwik entered the wealth management space with the acquisition of mutual fund platform Clearfunds in October last year, Ashish Kashyap's new venture in wealth management, INDWealth, also raised $30 million funding led by Steadview Capital. 

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