Advisorymandi Founders Roll-Out Invest19 to Help Small Investors Beyond Metros Grow Wealth Invest19 uses AI, ML and data science along with the right blend of agent network to simplify, automate and improve user experience in the stock markets, for both for retail investors and stock brokers

The idea behind tech-enabled stock investment platform Invest19 is to enable retail participation in the stock markets beyond the metros through technology.

"Absence of simplified interest based wish-list recommendations and expert opinion along with expensive services create entry barrier for investors from tier-III and tier-IV cities," said CEO and co-founder Kaushlendra Singh Sengar in an interview with Entrepreneur India.

Invest19, which officially rolled out its operations last week after getting a go-ahead for National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), aims to eliminate this barrier by providing a simplified, tech-enabled investing platform to investors in order to make their stock investing journey seamless.

The Noida-based startup is co-founded by Mehak Tomar, who is also co-founder and chief operating officer in the duo's first venture together Advisorymandi, a stock advisory marketplace.

Invest19 is a separate entity, with a different set of investors from Advisorymandi.

Also Read: Need Expert Recommendation for Stock Investment? This Advisory Marketplace Start-up Will Help

Helping Novice Investors Create Wealth

Sengar says complexity of existing trading platforms and high market expert fee have failed to attract novice investors to stock investing. "We need a human-centric, simplified and multilingual trading platform, so that beginners can also invest with confidence."

The platform makes use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and data science along with the right blend of agent network to simplify, automate and improve retail investor's experience in the stock markets, for both retail investors and stock brokers.

Retail investors can open a demat account with a broker of their choice and start investing in stocks. In the coming months, Invest19 plans to add options of commodity, currency, bonds, IPO, ETF and egold to its platform, to give investors the option to diversify their money into other asset classes.

Not just domestic markets, the platform is also giving retail investors the option to diversify globally by connecting with 45 global exchanges to make cross-border investment easy.

Additionally, the platform offers a round-the-clock dedicated SEBI registered stock market expert service to guide users with their investing decisions.

"Our platform is connected with SEBI registered experts wherein we are blending human expertise with AI to enhance investor's experience. The platform will connect investors and traders with the right adviser, who will push right investment ideas to the user on the basis of his investment style, risk appetite, investment horizon, and future goal," said Sengar.

He explains it further with an example, "Say, a user wants to invest INR 25,000. Our platform will not recommend him to invest in one unique stock that will exhaust his funds, whereas our technology will suggest him to build a diversified portfolio of stocks to mitigate risk."

Also, Invest19 platform will give its users the option to invest in stocks through Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). Through this route, an investor can buy a predetermined number of shares of a company at a fixed interval—weekly, monthly or quarterly—instead of putting a lumpsum. SIPs help inculcate investing discipline as you systematically invest your money regularly and mitigate the effect of market volatility on your investment by averaging out costs.

To begin with, the company has tied-up with six brokerage firms, including Reliance smartmoney, Aliceblue, Achiivers, Ajmera associates, Blackfox and Stockplus and plans to add over 50 more in the next 12 months.

Invest19 has kept most of its services, including account opening, expert advice and brokerage fee, free at its current beta stage. The platform's convenience fee on delivery based trading starts from INR 4 per trade. However, this charge will kick-in post 90 days of free usage for every new user.

In his mission to take the capital market in tier-III and tier-IV cities, Sengar said in the coming months the platform will be available in nine regional languages.

Building Cloud-Based Stock Investment Ecosystem for Brokers

Not just retail investors, Invest19 is also striving to improve stock market experience for brokers and brokerage businesses by building a cloud-based stock investment ecosystem.

Stock brokers will get a complete set of tools, tech solutions and high-end cloud based infrastructure that will help them with business expansion and client retention, while improving user experience, as per Sengar. "Our platform will help brokers in brand building and user acquisition, as we provide tailor made investment ideas by SEBI registered experts to broker clients and next generation trading platforms."

Also Read: Why Stock Brokers Should Adopt Technology

The company claims that these services will help them cut costs related to sales, marketing, operations, research and advisory. Brokerage companies don't even have to spend on building their own technology.

Apart from costs, stored data on the cloud will also ensure data protection and make it easily accessible even in adverse situations like a pandemic, natural disaster or any other similar crisis.

"With scalable technology, the brokers would no longer need to follow the traditional methods and can use the cloud-based model to execute certain operations hassle-free and can scale the business in a few hours without any fixed cost," said Sengar.