Is there a better way to empower Indian millennials?
Nirmalya Behera profiles the investment platform Groww.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
For a first-time investor, understanding of a financial product is more important than directly putting money into investments. Groww, a Bengaluru-based online investment platform that started operations in 2017, is making it easy.
Founded by former Flipkart employees -- Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal -- Groww has recently raised an undisclosed amount from Y Combinator, Mukesh Bansal (founder, Myntra & Curefit) and Ankit Nagori (Curefit).
"I cannot think of a better way to empower Indian millennials than enabling them to make financial investment choices that are more accessible, faster and cheaper. Groww does just that. Its products are built by a team that has expertise and experience to tackle this large opportunity," says Holly Liu, a partner at Y Combinator.
Groww leverages data to make investing simple, accessible and transparent.
It is a customer-centric investment platform that hosts several communities to help investors make the right decisions. The company helps investors understand financial products through its user-friendly interface and content specific to their needs.
"The number of investors in India is less than 20 million -- both online and offline. Due to the complex process of investment, people find it difficult to figure out where and how to invest. We are solving these problems by creating a simple platform. Currently available on a website and on Android, our platform allows users to do it seamlessly without any paperwork," says Keshre. "Our USP is the simplicity of our platform, which is similar to an e-commerce platform."
Groww plans to make its products available on iOS soon.
More than 5,000 mutual fund products of all the 34 mutual fund companies are available on its platform
"More than 100 million people having investible income are shopping online and money lying in banks accounts -- saving and fixed deposit -- is pegged at more than $500 billion. The opportunity is huge," says Keshre.
Groww's target customers are the first-time investors in the age group of 25-35 years. It claims a growth rate of more than 50 per cent month-on-month.
The start-up has plans to foray into financial products like government schemes, insurance, digital gold and equities.
Groww, which currently has 50,000 users, aims to reach the 1-million users mark in a year. "As a consumer start-up, our biggest challenge is to acquire users," says Keshre.
The company makes money from mutual fund firms through commission, which ranges between 0.5 and 1 per cent, by selling their products.
In 2017, Groww had raised an angel round of funding. It will use a major portion of the fresh funds for hiring engineers and new products.
