Groww, an India-based mutual funds investment platform, has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India. Y Combinator, Propel Venture Partners, and Kauffman Fellows also participated in this round.
With this funding round, Groww plans to scale and launch new products that offers high-quality investment options for younger generations.
Groww launched in 2017 and raised $1.6 million in pre-series A funding round from Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightbridge Partners, Kairos, and CureFit founders Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori. And the company also raised its seed funding round from Y Combinator and existing investors Bansal and Nagori. Including this round, Groww has raised $7.8 million total.
“Millennials are increasingly moving towards financial products instead of real estate and gold. Our goal is to become THE wealth app for the younger generation. There are 200 million people with investable income in India, but only 20 million investors. The only way to bring the next 180 million onboard is by making investing simple,” said Groww CEO and co-founder Lalit Keshre. “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.”
As of right now, Groww offers direct mutual fund investment plans. And it will soon roll out all other investment products like stocks. Currently, Groww has over a million users.
“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,” added Sequoia Capital India Advisors Principal Ashish Agrawal. “With their 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.”
Groww was launched by former Flipkart employees Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal. Some of Groww’s biggest rivals include Paytm and Coin by Zerodha.
