Online investment platform Groww has raised $1.6 million (around ₹10.9 crore today) in a pre-series A funding round from Insignia Venture Partners, America’s Lightbridge Partners and Kairos fund, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Existing investors, including CureFit founders Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, also participated in the round.
Groww also counts the American seed accelerator, Y Combinator, as an investor.
The investment comes after Groww, run by Nextbillion Technology Pvt. Ltd, raised seed funding from Bansal, Nagori and Y Combinator in January this year.
The Bengaluru-based start-up plans to use the funds for strengthening its technology. The company also plans to launch more financial products and services.
“Groww is the right idea, at the right time, to enable and empower a new generation of investors in India to build their financial future at a younger age, and we’re excited to be on the ground floor of this sea change,” said Tan Yinglan, founding managing partner of Insignia Ventures Partners.
While more than 200 million people have investable income in India, only 10% actually invest, according to Groww, which said it is trying to bring the remaining 180 million on board.
Currently, the Groww application has 0.1 million downloads on Playstore. “Our long-term goal is to make anything related to finance extremely simple and transparent for users, while providing them the best user experience,” said Lalit Keshre, co-founder and chief executive at Groww.
Founded in April 2017 by ex-Flipkart employees Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal, Groww aims to make investing a seamless and transparent process and also offers direct plans to mutual funds. It facilitates this through its Android application, where it partners with all 34 mutual fund houses.
Groww, a wealth management and mutual fund platform, competes with start-ups such as Nivesh.com, Mumbai-based Orowealth, Bengaluru-based Kuvera and Scripbox, among others.
Source: Mint