Wealth management startup Dezerv raises $20M in Series A funding round

Mumbai-based wealth management platform dezerv. has raised $20.7 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel Partners. Existing investors Elevation Capital, Matrix Partners, Whiteboard Capital, and GTM Ventures also participated in the round.

Dezerv's board has passed a special resolution to issue 20 equity shares and 46,289 Series A compulsory convertible preferred shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 35,078.42 per share to raise Rs 162.44 crore ($20.7 million). 

While Accel infused Rs 94.13 crore ($12 million), existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners added Rs 33.4 crore ($4.23 million) each. Whiteboard and GTM also joined the round with an infusion of Rs 97 lakh and Rs 58 lakh, respectively.

The startup had previously raised a seed round of $7 million, within six months of its launch in April last year. The new round takes the total fundraise to $27.7 million. 

With the fundraise, it intends to focus on strengthening the user experience, introducing new investment opportunities and growing the talent pool within the company.

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Founded in 2021 by former IIFL Wealth senior managing partners Sandeep Jethwani, Vaibhav Porwal, and Sahil Contractor, Dezerv provides advisory and investment services—particularly targeting senior working professionals and high net-worth individuals (HNIs)—across multi-assets and instruments, including alternatives and new asset classes that are offered online. 

The minimum investment ticket size has been kept at Rs 50,000, while founders claim that the average investment through the platform falls within the range of Rs 5-7 lakh, and goes up to crores. 

Post the allotment, co-founders will hold a 42.76% stake collectively, while Elevation and Matrix will have 16.02% stake each, followed by Accel.

Commenting on the fundraise, Abhinav Chaturvedi, Partner, Accel said," We’re excited to partner with Dezerv in their journey to provide investment expertise to working professionals in India. As the information asymmetry increases when it comes to investing and financial products, there is a greater need for domain experts managing money and delivering sustainable returns. We believe that the team at dezerv with decades of experience is best equipped to fill this gap that working professionals in India face."

In terms of volumes, the platform claims to have over Rs 600 crore of transacted assets (as of June 2022) on its platform and is expected to touch Rs 1,000 crore in the next few months. It has recently bagged its Portfolio Management Service (PMS) licence and would add the offering to its current services. A portfolio manager is required to accept minimum of Rs 50 lakh or securities having a minimum worth of Rs 50 lakh from the client. 

Dezerv’s competes with the investment arms of private sector banks, besides a host of other independent financial advisories in the country. Tech platforms like Groww, Zerodha, Upstox, Scripbox, and Kuvera are also operating in the space but follow a more Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach without much human interface.

The startup is also backed by angel investors, including Kunal Shah (CRED), Ramakant Sharma (LivSpace), Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra (Ofbusiness), Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal (Meesho), Varun Dua (Acko), Nitin Gupta (Uni), Anurag Sinha (OneCard), Shashvat Nakrani and Suhail Sameer (BharatPe), and Revant Bhate (Mosaic), along with marquee family offices including Taparia (FamyCare), RK Kedia (Manjushree), CJ Shah and Neeraj Goenka (Texport). Industry professionals including Akash Saxena (Hotstar), K Rangarajan (Five Star), and Aashish Sommaiyaa (WhiteOak) have also backed the startup.

(The story was updated with the fundraise deployment plans and investor's views, as shared by the firm in a release)