Mumbai-based Oro Wealth, a leading fin-tech company and India’s first zero commission Direct Mutual Fund Platform, today announced that it has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding.

Orowealth has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding round 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 Chandrsekaran, ex CPO Airtel and Dinesh Agarwal, Founder Indiamart. Existing investors M&S Partners and GSF also participated in this round. Post the fund raise, 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.

Founded in 2015 by Nitin Agrawal, Swati Aggarwal, Vijay Kuppa and Yogesh Powar, ORO Wealth enables retail investors and offline intermediaries to access high quality advice and investment services through its web and mobile-based wealth management platform.

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". Nitin has worked at Deutsche Bank in Equity Structuring in their London and Singapore offices.

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.​”

Meanwhile, India has urged the Asian Development Bank to invest in fintech and health startups in the country, to help improve the quality of life in Asia while sharpening focus on infrastructure lending by ensuring loan disbursals within a year of request.

Via - BusinessWire India | Top Image - YourStory.com

Recent Funding in FinTech Space



Last month, global tech giant Amazon has invested $22 million in Capital Float, a Bengaluru headquartered digital lending startup.

In the same month, New Delhi-based Namaste Credit, an another fintech category startup has raised USD 3.8 million in series A round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners. Prior to that, Bangalore-based fintech startup SmartCoin had raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding from a top Shanghai headquartered VC fund and Accion Venture Lab. Prior to this, Cash Suvidha, a Delhi-based fintech startup, raised $1 million pre-Series A funding from Initia Holdings Ltd.

In February, a Mumbai based fintech startup Fincash.com raised $150,000 in funding from angel investors including like Mohammed Khan (Founder of Rediffusion), Sameer Narayan (ex- Fund Manager BNP Paribas), among others. Prior to that, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions raised $13.2 million in its Series A funding from investors including Social Capital, JS Capital LLC (the family office of Jonathan Soros), and Horizons Ventures and existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

Last November, an Artificial intelligence-powered fintech startup Active.Ai raised $8.25 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures, Creditease Holdings and Dream Incubator.

Fintech space continue to be the most invested segment among startups in India. According to a NASSCOM report published in November 2017 Fintech, along with healthcare, are most funded segments of startups in India, in past one year. The total number of startups in the fintech space has gone up to 360 from 275 in 2016, thus registering 31% growth in the number of startups.
Advertisements

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post
Like this content? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get latest updates.