[Funding alert] Jiraaf raises $7.5M led by Accel Partners, Mankekar Family Office, others

Bengaluru-based investment platform Jiraaf on Wednesday announced that it has raised $7.5 million in a Series A round led by Accel Partners, Mankekar Family Office, Aspire Family Office (Dr Bhaskar Shah), and other angel investors.

This round also saw participation from multiple angel investors including Capital A, PharmEasy founders, Ramakant Sharma (Co-founder, Livspace), Founders of Zetwerk, Anuj Jhaveri (Director at Barclays, Hong Kong), and Shantanu Garg (Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group).

According to the official statement, the newly raised funding will be used to build a team to source high-quality opportunities, strengthen customer service, and enhance tech capabilities.

Saurav Ghosh, Co-founder of Jiraaf, said, 

“We curate exclusive alternate fixed income products and through rigorous risk assessment and diligence ensure that the investors have access to high-quality opportunities. Our vision is to build a convenient and credible platform for everything fixed income for investors.”

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Founded in September 2021 by finance professionals Saurav Ghosh and Vineet Agrawal, Jiraaf claims to offer high-yield non-market linked investment opportunities with yields in the range of 8-20 percent and tenors between 30 days to three years.

Barath Shankar Subramanian, Partner at Accel Partners, said, 

“There is a very strong demand for alternate fixed-income products among retail investors. India has nearly $2 trillion invested in fixed deposits and the mutual fund industry is sized at $0.5 trillion which saw a 3X growth in the last five years. Jiraaf is addressing a large market gap by offering diversified fixed income products which can form a meaningful part of every investor’s portfolio over the next decade, especially in the current and forecasted macro-economic scenario. Saurav and Vineet have sound ability to understand nuances of financial products, have built a strong team and are transforming access to such new age products through a simple and transparent platform.”

The platform aims to help individual investors earn better returns by participating in high-quality opportunities that go beyond equities, fixed deposits, real estate, and gold.

“Over the last eight months, we have originated opportunities over Rs 250 crore and have more than 10,000 registered investors. The funds raised in this round are going to be used to further build our team for sourcing high-quality opportunities, robust credit assessment, and strengthening our customer service. We are looking to achieve a transaction volume of Rs 1,000 crore by this year-end, and an investor base of 100,000," added Vineet Agrawal, Co-founder, Jiraaf.