Mumbai, May 29, 2018: Orowealth, India’s first zero commission Direct Mutual Fund Platform has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding.
The funding round was led by Powerhouse Ventures with participation by Money Forward Inc., one of the largest publicly listed fin-tech companies in Japan; a prominent US VC Social Capital, under their Capital as a Service program; B Dash Ventures, one of the largest VCs in Japan; and other prominent angel investors including Anand Chandrasekaran, ex CPO Airtel and Dinesh Agarwal, Founder Indiamart.
Existing investors M&S Partners and GSF also participated in this round.
Post funding, Sri Peddu from Powerhouse Ventures will join the Board and Money Forward will take a Board observer role at Orowealth. This is the second round of funding for the company, post the seed round raised from GSF, Powerhouse Ventures and M&S Partners in 2016.
Speaking on the announcement, Mr. Nitin Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, said “We are very excited about this fund raise. We would like to thank our new and existing investors for their belief and confidence in our business model and in the team at Orowealth. We would also like to thank our customers for placing their trust in brand Orowealth and this fund raise gives us an opportunity to serve them even better.”
Mr. Vijay Kuppa, Co-Founder & COO added “We will invest the funds towards product innovation and in strengthening our research capabilities as we look to add new products in the coming months. We also plan to focus on forging alliances with partners who wish to offer tech-enabled wealth products to their customer base.”
Mr. Yogesh Powar, Co-Founder & CTO, said “We are also looking to scale up our technology and data sciences capability to provide highly personalized investing tools and a high quality customer experience.”
Speaking on the investment, Mr. Sri Peddu said, “In India, the financial services industry is going through a tectonic shift driven by technology and innovation. Through automated investment planning, Orowealth is democratizing access to financial products for the retail investor and reducing time-to-market for major banks, large wealth management firms and brokerage houses”. Mr. Yosuke Tsuji, Founder & CEO of Money Forward said, “Retail wealth market in India is gigantic. It offers ample scope for innovation and we are excited to partner with Orowealth to better understand the local market.” Mr. Hiro Mashita, M&S Partners said, “Wealth is the new frontier for fin-techs in India. Orowealth is at the forefront of personal wealth management offering low-cost, high-quality robo-advise”. Mr. Rajesh Sawhney, GSF added “As Indians become wealthy, they will seek to manage and grow their wealth using new-generation AI platforms like Orowealth. Orowealth’s founding team is its biggest asset”.
Orowealth offers zero commission products and personalized financial advice to retail investors with the aim of maximizing their returns. Oro Wealth has existing partnerships with large financial institutions like Sharekhan and Online Trading Academy to provide wealth management solutions to their clients. Orowealth was founded in the year 2016 by 3 IIT-IIM alumni, Nitin Agrawal, Vijay Kuppa and Yogesh Powar. Aimed to ‘make investors richer’, Orowealth offers financial tools for execution, analysis and advice on various products such as MFs, Stocks, Bonds, Insurance etc. Orowealth is the direct mutual fund platform with the longest track record. It is currently managing over Rs 500 crores of assets under advisory and aims to cross Rs 3000 crores of assets by Dec 2019.