This Wealth Management Start-Up Plans To Use $1.3 Mln Funding To Expand Partner Base Having begun three years ago with an offering of easy tax saving investments, Bengaluru-based Wealthy said it would use the new funds to gain more partners and develop the platform further.
By Debroop Roy
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Fintech start-up Wealthy.in, which helps professionals manage their money, has raised $1.3 million in a funding round led by early stage venture capital firm Good Capital. Fintech investment firm Emphasis Ventures was also part of the round, the company said in a statement.
"Wealthy's approach in enabling middleman to better curate and serve the eventual customer is something that resonates well with our investment thesis," said Good Capital's founding partner Arjun Malhotra.
According to the company's website, it currently helps over 20,000 people manage their wealth.
From Saving Taxes to Managing Wealth
Founded in 2016, in its initial stages, Wealthy offered investment solutions aimed at tax saving, in three clicks. Over the last three years, however, it has expanded its offering to include other financial services and products.
Some of Wealthy's most popular products include children's education, retirement plans and house building. The Bengaluru-based company claims to have INR 800 crore under advisory.
"Indian households with a large and emerging middle class deserve the transparency, cost-efficiency, and convenience of the country's digital finance transformation, while still enjoying personalized, professional service from their advisor," said Emphasis' managing partner Melissa Frakman.
Word of Mouth Growth
As the company has scaled and used social media for digital marketing purposes, it says, customers, who were referred by their friends or at their workplace via word of mouth, were the ones who had built "meaningful" relationships with the platform.
"Our focus is to build a strong base of partners that we call wealth managers," said Wealthy's co-founder Aditya Agarwal.
According to Agarwal, even though there is a growing demand for convenient and paperless online financial solutions, there is an underlying trust issue that deters most end customers.
"Our partners are helping solve this trust deficit by bringing a rules-based advisory experience to customers in their trust network," he added.
On Google play store, Wealthy's app currently has over 50,000 downloads.
Scaling Further
The company said the new funds would be used to scale up the partner base further while it also works to develop and expand its product offering.
"Our latest fundraise will help us fast track the process of onboarding banking professionals who are looking for an independent career," said Prashant Gupta, another one of Wealthy's co-founders.
"Wealthy's bank-like financial services platform, software-led advisory and a cloud-based operation empowers these partners to build the career they always dreamt of," he added.