Bengaluru-based startup Groww, a platform to invest in stocks and mutual funds, has raised USD 83 million in a Series D round that valued it at more than one billion dollar—making it one of the latest entrants into India’s unicorn club—led by Tiger Global with participation from Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, and Propel Venture Partners.
The five-year-old company started by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal—former Flipkart employees—targets at rookie millennial investors and provide products like stocks, mutual funds, and other asset classes. The company, claiming over 15 million users, provides a paperless investment process with the use of technology to enable younger generation to buy stocks and invest in mutual funds and IPOs.
“We are excited to partner with Groww as they help democratize access to investing in India. We believe the market opportunity is huge and expect Groww will have many years of efficient growth ahead,” Scott Shleifer, a partner at Tiger Global Management, said.
Groww will use the recent funding to expand its offering, acquire new talent, and invest in creating content for financial education and awareness among its users. According to a Techcrunch report, around 10 million users are first-time investors and over 60% of users are from India’s lower tier cities.
“Financial education content has been a critical focus for Groww from its inception. In the next two years, the company plans to launch a slew of financial education initiatives aimed at millennials and expand the market for financial services,” the company said in a statement.
According to Keshre, CEO and co-founder of Groww, only around 25 million people in India invest in stocks or mutual funds. “We will continue working to change this,” he said.
Last year, during a three-month-long lockdown, a lot of people started to explore investing in stocks and mutual funds as they had more time on their hand. India saw a 27% rise in new investors wanting to buy stocks and mutual funds. The company competes with a handful of other similar platforms such as Zerodha, Paytm Money, IndWealth, Cube Wealth, ET Money, among others.
