Online stock market and mutual fund investment platform, Groww, has probably found its most high profile angel investor. Groww’s co-founder & CEO Lalit Keshre announced on Saturday that Microsoft chief Satya Nadella has joined the company as its new investor. Nadella will also act as the advisor to the Bengaluru based company.
Mr. Keshre made the announcement on his twitter handle. But he did not announce the exact quantum of investment that Nadella has made in the company. It seems that Nadella has made investment in his personal capacity. To the best of our knowledge, this is Nadella’s first investment in Indian startups in his personal capacity.
This is Gorww’s first investment of 2022. The Bengaluru based company had raised two big ticket funding rounds last year. In April, it raised $83 Mn at little over $1 Bn valuation, propelling the company to India’s rapidly ballooning unicorn club. This was followed by Series E round in October when it raised $251 Mn at valuation of roughly $3 Bn.
The startup counts several big names as its investor. This includes the likes of Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, Lone Capital and Ribbit Capital among others.
Groww was founded in 2016 by four ex-Flipkart executives – Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal. The platform especially helps the millennial crowd and smartphone generation in making online investment in stocks and mutual funds.
What possibly works for Groww and its competitors is the fact that appetite of Indian people, especially, the millennial crowd is growing steadily. The last year’s stock market rally has only helped in further augmenting people’s interest in the stock market.
Groww competes with Tiger Global backed Upstox, bootstrapped Zerodha and Paytm Money. Interestingly, Tiger Global is a mutual investor in both Upstox and Groww.