Get, set, GROWW!

 With more than 1.5 crore users across 900+ cities, about 100+ team  members, and a 4.6-star rating, Groww is one of the fastest-growing investment platforms in India. Founded by 4 of Flipkart’s ex-employees- Lalit Keshre (CEO), Harsh Jain (COO), Ishan Bansal (CTO), and Neeral Singh (CFO), Groww also happens to be India’s first VC-backed unicorn in the investment tech industry.

Based on their own experiences and that of their friends and acquaintances, the founders were of the opinion that the process of investing in financial products in India is too complex and non-transparent. Lalit Keshre (Co-founder and CEO) wanted to start up in a space that was not only big but also had a problem at the consumers’ end. He was of the firm belief that it is very important for an entrepreneur to be passionate about the problem he is solving. He had always been interested in investing and started investing since his first year in college. Despite the fundamentally changing consumer experience across sectors including e-commerce, cab-booking, and food delivery, he observed that financial services were still an old-school segment.

He analyzed the data available and found that out of close to 200 million people with investable income, only 3–4 percent of the population is investing in equities. Lalit concluded that a lot of Indians’ money is lying in savings accounts attracting very little interest, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are able to make the most of the growth that India’s economy has to offer. And this desire to offer a product that would attract the rest of 96–97% of 200 million potential people towards investing was, in a way, the start of what we know today as Groww!

The initial goal of the team was to develop an internal financial services company with the best user experience. They wanted to start with investments but were not quite sure of the product. They eventually started as a direct mutual fund distribution platform and launched their product in 2017 with the dual aim to make investing simple and promote investing culture in the country which also follows the ‘vocal for local’ vision.

Groww allows its users to invest in mutual funds, including systematic investment planning (SIP) and equity-linked savings, gold, as well as stocks, including those listed at U.S. exchanges. The company also launched its YouTube channel called ‘Groww’, an educational channel where various concepts in investing are discussed and insights into stock and mutual funds are shared.

Groww app aims to make investing in India easy, fast, and transparent. It achieves these goals by making the app and its services available free of charge to the customers, providing a simple design, clean user interface such as making account opening hassle-free, paperless, and order placement just a couple of clicks away and offering every fund that is currently available in India; reflecting how they believe in the principles such as honesty, integrity, customer first and simple is beautiful.

It is noteworthy that some of the most respected investors in the fintech space have backed Groww’s vision. It was also a part of the YC Winter 2018 batch.

In July 2018, in Pre- Series A funding, Groww had raised $1.2 million in led by Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightbridge Partners, Kairos, and others.

In January 2019, in its Series A funding, Groww raised a funding of $6.3 million led by Sequoia India. This round also saw the participation from Propel Venture Partners, Kauffman Fellows, and Y Combinator. These funds were then used to launch new products and build the platform’s technology.

In September 2019, in its Series B funding, it raised $21.4 million as a part of its round which was led by US-based VC firm Ribbit Capital along with participation from existing investors Sequoia India and Y Combinator.

In an interview, Mr. Lalit Keshre expressed his views as follows:, “We started Groww with a mission to democratize financial services in India. Today, we are the go-to platform for the new generation of investors. This round brings one of the best fintech investors to partner with us in addition to the already great set of partners that we have. In addition, the capital will enable us to strengthen our team to build exciting products for our users”.

When spoken to the Principal of Sequoia Capital India LLP, Mr. Ashish Agrawal, one of the investors of Groww, shared that, “Sequoia India continues to be impressed by Groww’s execution of their vision to provide a low-cost seamless investing experience. We are excited to have Ribbit Capital join the team and look forward to partnering with them to build Groww.”

In September 2020, in Series C funding led by YC Continuity, Groww raised $30 mn. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital, and Propel Ventures.

A part of the funding was utilized to further run their pan-India financial education initiative ‘Ab India Karega Invest’.

Mr. Lalit Keshre acknowledges the key role that YC played in the early years of Groww and how the investment made by them will help Groww accelerate towards its goals.

It is worth mentioning how the demographic profile of Groww has shifted over time. At present, 60% of Groww users hail from tier 2, 3 cities and 60% of these are first-time investors. The median age of our user base has also gone down from 29 to 26 years. And to bring financial products within their grasp, Groww also started a financial education initiative ‘Ab India Karega Invest’, earlier this year (2020).

Groww experts used to tour select cities to conduct workshops on investing which however has been moved online due to COVID. Weekly live sessions are conducted to see top fund managers and CEOs from leading Indian AMCs, answer investment-related questions and guide investors. The campaign received a great response.

In the early half of 2020, Groww added stocks and later in the same year launched digital gold, ETFs, Intraday trading, IPOs in quick succession.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day too, Groww launched a new ad campaign that aimed to put the spotlight on the gender-based wealth gap and mentioned that every investment made by women on its platform, helps in bridging the gap between men and women when it comes to ownership of wealth. It introduced ‘Groww Women’s Week’ which charged zero brokerage from women investors from March 8th to 15th to encourage more women to invest.

In April 2021, in Series D funding, Groww raised $83 million which made the online investment platform the latest entrant into India’s startup unicorn club. The round was led by Tiger Global. It is the third investment by the New York-based investment fund in the sector after Upstox and IndWealth. Existing investors Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, and Propel Venture Partners also participated in the round.

Though Groww has been doing really well all these years, it still faces stiff competition from Zerodha, Upstox, and Paytm Money in India’s burgeoning online investment market. And to fight this competition it plans to expand its product suite with the new fundraise, hire top-quality talent, and invest heavily in financial education and awareness. The CEO realized how the founders started Groww almost five years back to make investing accessible and transparent to everyone in India and how they have made good progress, though it still feels to them that they have just got started.

Talking of the future, Groww plans to launch a slew of financial education initiatives aimed at millennials and expand the market for financial services in the next 2 years.