Fintech platform Groww enters the Unicorn club with an $83M fundraise

Fintech platform Groww has recently announced fundraise of $83 million led by Tiger Global at a valuation of $1 billion. The financing round also saw participation from the startup’s existing investors-Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital, Propel Ventures Partners, and YC Continuity. With this funding, the startup has raised a total of $140 million to date.

This India-based investment platform becomes the fourth startup in the country this week to enter the coveted Unicorn club after Cred, Meesho, and PharmEasy. So far, eight Indian startups have entered into the unicorn category since the beginning of 2021.

Fundraise has come just six months after the startup raised $30 million in September 2020. The investment round was led by Y Combinator’s growth stage fund and YC Continuity.

Groww plans to use this fresh infusion of funds to expand its product suite, invest heavily in financial services focusing on Millennials, and hire talent.

Online investment platforms such as Groww and its competitors such as Paytm Money, Upstox, and Zerodha have witnessed a surge in the number of transactions as well as users in 2020 as people amidst pandemic sought ways to grow their wealth by diversified investments. According to the BCG-Ficci study, there are approximately 2100 Fintech startups in the country with almost 67 percent of them being set up in the last five years.

Retail investments in stocks, mutual funds, IPOs, and bonds is still quite nascent in India. However, things are picking up pace due to some educational initiatives run by a few online investment platforms. According to Groww’s co-founder, Lalit Keshre, there are approximately 25 million people in the country who are investing in mutual funds or stocks. Groww aims to broaden this base and will use the new capital to invest in new products and will continue to build its financial education platforms.

About Groww

Groww headquartered in Bangalore, India was founded by former Flipkart Executives-Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, Lalit Keshre, and Ishan Bansal in 2017. The investment platform offers a new way of investing money with direct mutual funds and stockbroking.

Groww provides insights about systematic investment planning, mutual funds, equity-linked savings, and everything related to personal finance, which makes the process of investment simpler, accessible, transparent, and paperless for investors. The users can invest in mutual funds without any hassles. Investors also have an option to invest in US stocks and gold through Groww’s platform.

Tweets by _groww

The startup claims to have more than 15 million registered users to date out of which 7 million have been added in the last six months alone. Since June 2020, Groww has opened 2 million new Demat accounts under its stockbroking business Groww Stocks that was launched last year. The platform has witnessed nearly 250,000 systematic investment plans (SIPs) per month.

Last year, the Fintech startup also launched Groww Academy to help users with personal finance and investment.