How Noida startup Advisorymandi is taking stock broking to Tier II and III towns

Stock advisory marketplace Advisorymandi.com is using its execution platform, Invest19.com, to facilitate retail participation in the stock market for people from Tier II and III India.

Sunday December 08, 2019 , 4 min Read

The idea for stock broking platform Advisorymandi, a Noida-based startup, took shape with a simple problem statement: ‘to provide simplified investment advice to investors so they continue making better trading decisions’.

What started as an initiative to get analysts on one platform turned into an investment house that attracted investment of $36 million from Swiss-based EST Group in September.

Advisorymandi.com is a stock advisory marketplace bringing together investors and connecting them with the top stock experts. Its execution platform, Invest19.com, works in facilitating retail participation in the stock market for people from non-metros and towns.

How it all started

Started by Kaushlendra Singh Sengar in 2015, Advisorymandi Group aimed to provide a platform for investors and traders to compare their stock recommendations on the basis of their past performance, reviews and ratings, and choose the right stock expert as per their trading style, preference, and risk appetite.

The following year, in April, the startup organised an event—Pro Advisory Championship (PAC)—enabling investment advisors and SEBI-registered analysts to provide advice on the Indian stock market.

The event took off, and investors and traders approached Advisorymandi with a suggestion for a round-the-year setup for the community that came about as a result of the championship.

Founder Kaushlendra recalls that while that idea was not exactly feasible, the positive response led to his building a stock advisory aggregator platform. Within a few days, hundreds of SEBI-registered analysts and investment advisors registered with Advisorymandi.com.

Today, the platform supports more than 270 SEBI-registered analysts helping investors and traders in making smart trading decisions.

Taking it to a wider audience

However, despite the good response, the startup realised that there was a bigger market for it to sink its teeth into.

Therefore, to facilitate retail participation in the stock market and cater to the untapped market of Tier II and III cities, Advisorymandi started Invest19.com.

While Advisorymandi.com is an aggregation platform of stockbrokers, Invest19.com is the execution platform providing stock investment and wealth-building products to people across multiple asset-class investment choices, in order to invest in financial securities as per their capacity, risk appetite, and time horizon.

The new platform claims that it adopts an amalgamation of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to enhance the user experience and make investment easy for every class of investors.

Kaushlendra is joined by Mahek Tomer, who is the Chief Operating Officer of Advisorymandi, and in the past has worked with financial companies like HDFC, HSBC, and MetLife among others.

Advisorymandi.com also has a mobile app for Android and iOS users, for quick access to online research data.

“We've got the bigger opportunity here to enhance the savings and investments in India to contribute to the economy of the country. We've got a huge untapped target audience, and we’re representing stocks and removing the complexity so that this market can understand easily while minimising the risk and enhancing returns,” says Kaushlendra, the CEO of the startup.

Currently, the biggest challenge faced by Advisorymandi is the lack of awareness and financial literacy around stock market investment.

Kaushlendra notes that while individuals want to invest, they don’t know where to start. However, the startup sees this as an opportunity.

“One myth among common people that stock investing is ‘gambling’. They are not willing to take the risk. Admittedly, it is way riskier than fixed deposits, PPF, and other fixed-income assets, but, contrary to popular belief, stock provides the best returns in assets class among all investment options. Also, it is risky only if you start buying and selling without any research or proper guidance,” he says.

At present, Advisorymandi claims to be trading a total GMV of over Rs 2 crore annually.

Looking into the future

Participation of Indian investors in the stock market is strikingly low and accounts for only 2.5 per cent of India’s population.

For fiscal 2018-19, the Indian broking industry is estimated to post a moderate growth of 5-10 percent with estimated revenue projected at Rs 19,500 crore to Rs 20,000 crore, according to rating agency ICRA.

Focussed on entry-level investors, Advisorymandi is looking to repair the big disconnect between the Indian stock market and investors.

The startup is looking to witness organic growth through retail partnerships, and is currently focusing on driving innovation through its product and service offerings across multiple-class asset choices.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)