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Mumbai-based wealth management startup OroWealth has raised $1.6 million (Rs 11 crore) in a Series A funding round led by US-based venture capital firm Powerhouse Ventures, a company statement said.
Money Forward Inc., a publicly listed Japanese fin-tech company; Social Capital, led by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya; and B Dash Ventures, a Japanese VC firm also participated in the round. Angel investors such as Anand Chandrasekaran, former Snapdeal product head and Dinesh Agarwal, founder of Indiamart, as well as existing investors M&S Partners and Global Super Angels Forum (GSF), a startup accelerator-cum-early-stage fund, also put in money, the statement added.
Post the fundraise, Sri Peddu, founder and managing director of Powerhouse Ventures, will join the board of OroWealth and Money Forward.
The startup will use the funds for product innovation, scaling up technology and data science capabilities, and to strengthen its research capabilities as it plans to add new products in the coming months, Vijay Kuppa and Yogesh Powar, co-founders of Orowealth, said in the statement. “We also plan to focus on forging alliances with partners who wish to offer tech-enabled wealth products to their customer base,” Kuppa added.
OroWealth was founded by IIM and IIT alumni Kuppa, Powar, Swati Aggarwal, and Nitin Agrawal in 2016. The zero-commission investment platform offers unbiased and low-cost wealth management services to retail customers and financial intermediaries like banks, brokers, and wealth managers.
OroWealth has existing partnerships with financial institutions like Sharekhan and Online Trading Academy to provide wealth management solutions to their clients.
It currently claims to be managing over Rs 500 crore of assets under advisory and aims to cross Rs 3,000 crore of assets by December 2019.
The startup last raised funds in 2016 from GSF, Powerhouse Ventures and M&S Partners.
Deals in the space
Other startups offering wealth management services that raised funds include Chennai-based Kaleidofin, which in April raised $2.8 million (Rs 18 crore) in a seed round led by Omidyar Network. Blume Ventures and Israeli serial entrepreneur and inventor, Shlomo Ben-Haim had also participated in the round. Kaleidofin provides intuitive and tailored financial solutions to the informal sector, for which it has tied up with banks, non-banking financial companies and micro-finance institutions.
In February, Mumbai-based Fincash.com raised Rs 1 crore ($150,000) from a group of angel investors. The startup offers its users an online platform that helps investors transact as well as monitor their investments in mutual funds, wealth management products and other investments.
In November 2017, Fisdom raised $3.84 million (Rs 25 crore) in a Series B round led by Quona Capital Management Ltd, a venture capital firm focused on the fin-tech sector. Existing investor Saama Capital, too, participated in the round. Fisdom offers a mobile-first platform for users to manage their investments, besides withdrawing money at any point in time.