Wealthy Secures ₹130 Cr in Funding Led by Bertelsmann India Investments to Scale Its AI-powered Platform for Mutual Fund Distributors

• The company will use this capital to further invest in technology, expand into Tier 2 and Tier 3 geographies, onboard 50,000 distributors, and achieve ₹1 lakh crore in AUM.
• Wealthy combines human trust with AI-powered technology to help independent professionals become sophisticated wealth entrepreneurs, making wealth management scalable, personalized, and accessible for millions of Indians.

Wealthy.in, India’s leading wealth-tech platform for mutual-fund distributors and wealth management professionals, has raised ₹130 crore in a Series B round led by Bertelsmann India Investments. The round also saw participation from existing investor Alphawave Global, new investor Shepherd's Hill, and a group of prominent tech entrepreneurs.

Founded by IIT–IIM alumni Aditya Agarwal and Prashant Gupta, Wealthy’s platform processes over ₹300 crore in monthly transactions and works with a network of more than 6,000 mutual fund distributors serving over 100,000 clients across 1,000+ towns. It has also emerged as India’s second-largest recruiter of distributors, onboarding more than 350 every month. Client assets worth ₹5,000 crore are currently being managed on the platform.

Wealthy.in’s Series A was led by Alphwave Global in 2022 and in the last three years the company's AUM has grown from ₹200 crore to ₹5,000 crore underlying the rapid expansion of business. Wealthy has 20 offices across India, with a strong presence in major cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Gurugram, Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, and Kolkata — supported by a 250+ member team.

The fresh capital will accelerate Wealthy's mission to empower India's rapidly growing mutual fund distributors (MFDs) with advanced AI-powered tools and digital infrastructure, transforming how Indian investors save, invest, and build long-term financial wealth.

With mutual fund AUM at 75 lakh crore and India’s wealth management market projected to double to 200 lakh crore by FY29, independent MFDs have become the backbone and growth engine of the retail wealth industry. Their numbers have doubled to nearly 2 lakh in the last five years, as investors increasingly prefer independent distributors who are unaffiliated with product manufacturers and can offer unbiased guidance.

Yet, most lack the digital infrastructure, tools, and product access needed to compete with institutional players. MFDs continue to spend nearly 70% of their time on manual processes such as KYC and compliance, limiting their ability to scale and focus on client engagement.

"India has a fundamental advice gap that technology alone cannot solve. LIC serves over 40 crore customers, yet mutual funds have only 5 crore investors—this gap exists because we have too few advisors, and the ones we have lack the tools to scale," said Aditya Agarwal, Co-founder of Wealthy. "MFDs have done a phenomenal job building trust and relationships, but to scale to the next level, they needed technology investment that was missing from the ecosystem. We've built a mobile-first, India-made solution designed specifically for how Indians invest and how Indian advisors work. Our platform combines the irreplaceable value of human advice with AI-powered tools, enabling wealth partners to deliver institutional-quality service at scale. This is how we'll bridge the advice gap and bring sophisticated wealth management to millions.”

According to RBI data on Household Flow of Financial Assets, equity mutual funds attracted ₹4.66 lakh crore in net inflows in FY25—an increase of more than seven times in the last five years. While existing portfolios continue to compound with market gains, new wealth creation is increasingly flowing through managed investment vehicles like mutual funds.

"Our vision is to unlock a completely new supply of wealth entrepreneurs across India,” said Prashant Gupta, Co-founder of Wealthy. “We're seeing relationship managers, ex-bankers, and finance professionals leave traditional roles to build independent practices. These professionals are becoming true wealth entrepreneurs, running their own businesses and building long-term equity. Wealthy provides everything they need: comprehensive technology, professional tools, access to products across all asset classes—mutual funds, equities, bonds, PMS, AIFs—combined with insurance and financial solutions. This holistic approach empowers distributors to serve as genuine wealth partners to their clients, not just product distributors. That's the future we're building."

“Less than 15% of Indian households have any exposure to the Indian equities market, either directly or indirectly. As India marches on its way to being a developed country, we believe this number will move closer to 60% and catch up with developed markets. Wealthy will play a critical role in this mission as it provides cutting edge technology, as well as access to multiple products to MFD’s all over the country. We are excited to partner with Aditya and Prashant on this journey of financial inclusion and creation of the next big wealth-tech platform in the country,” said Rohit Sood, Partner at Bertelsmann India Investments.

Wealthy’s AI-powered platform offers a complete 360° solution, combining investments - mutual funds, stocks, PMS, FDs, fixed income securities - and protection products like term and health insurance in one place. With dedicated apps for both clients and distributors, it enables seamless access to 200+ financial institutions across a full range of financial products across multiple asset classes.

It empowers independent distributors with:

• AI-Powered Advisory Workflows: Real-time alerts for pending tasks, portfolio insights, risk tracking, and client engagement—shifting them from reactive to proactive advisory.
• AI-enabled onboarding: Clients can now complete KYC and start investing within two minutes
• Enterprise-Grade Distributor Tools: Personalized websites, branded client applications, and professional marketing resources that elevate MFDs to credible distributors with institutional-level digital presence.
• Data-Driven Insights & Analytics: Advanced analytics that provide distributors with portfolio performance tracking, client behavior patterns, and business growth metrics to make informed advisory decisions.

With Avg Ticket Size of $10 Mn, BII to Invest in Upto 4 Startups in Next 12 Mths

Strategic investment arm of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in India, Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), is targeting to make bets on two to four Startups in the next 12 months with an average ticket size of $10 million, said a report by Business Standard.

Next year, BII will also do 3-5 follow-on investments in its current portfolio. BII, which is a mid-stage venture capital firm, has made a follow-on funding in logistics aggregator for D2C sellers, Shiprocket, in May this year. The VC firm did not make any new investment this year and besides Shiprocket made 7-8 follow-on investments in its current pool of portfolio companies such as Licious and Lendingkart.

Pankaj Makkar, managing director of BII, said, "Of 11 of our portfolio companies in India, about 6-7 could become Unicorns in a couple of years. We are waiting for some of these success stories to emerge after which would start exiting some of them in the next 3-5 years."

Bertelsmann has been active in India since 2003 and most of its divisions have a presence here. The RTL Group subsidiary FremantleMedia has produced international hit shows including “Indian Idol”, “X Factor” and “India's Got Talent” through its production unit in Mumbai.

At the end of September, Bertelsmann Investments held 244 investments in startup companies and funds through its international fund structures. In the period under review, the funds made 46 new and follow-on investments, and also realized eight exits.

Shiprocket Raises $13 Mn in Series C from Tribe Capital, Innoven Capital and Bertelsmann India Investments

Shiprocket, a tech-enabled logistics aggregator for D2C sellers has announced its Series C round of financing to the tune of USD 13 Million (~INR 100 crore). The round has been led by Tribe Capital LLC, front-running Silicon Valley-based investment firm along with Innoven Capital and existing investor Bertelsmann India Investments.

The latest capital infusion brings Shiprocket’s total funding to $26 million. The investment will be used to fuel Shiprocket’s aggressive product development roadmap which includes hiring top talent across the data science and engineering domains. The funds will also be focused on the company’s new initiatives including its international expansions. As part of the agreement, Arjun Sethi from Tribe Capital LLC will join Shiprocket’s Board of Directors.

“As a truly disruptive platform, Shiprocket has offered numerous SMEs a cost-effective and world-class solution for e-commerce shipping. The boom in D2C brands and social selling across India has been facilitated by companies like ours who are committed to providing advanced technology and fulfillment solutions to online sellers enabling them to compete with larger brands and marketplaces” said Saahil Goel, CEO and Co-founder, Shiprocket.

“This additional capital will allow us to accelerate our strategic goals and product development endeavors by hiring top talent in key areas. We are extremely grateful to Bertelsmann India Investments for continuing to back us over the years and being supportive of our vision. We also welcome our new investors Tribe Capital LLC and Innoven Capital to the Shiprocket family.” he added.

Speaking on the investment, Arjun Sethi, Co-founder, Tribe Capital , said, “One of the reasons why the United States and emerging economies have thrived over the last 50 years has been a healthy dynamic of small to medium entrepreneurial businesses alongside consolidation and scaling corporations. We invested in Shiprocket because they empower the small to medium businesses that truly represent the heart and soul of any emerging economy. Today, the SME segment lacks capital finance and credit, infrastructure, technology, and marketing strategies. Shiprocket has enabled these businesses to grow at a time of emerging competition enabled by mobile internet and corporations."

Pankaj Makkar, Bertelsmann India Investments said, “Shiprocket is a company with strong value to consumers and great growth trajectory. It is one of the leaders in the booming Indian SME technology space and is already the backbone of direct e-commerce market. We are very excited to deepen our ties with the exceptional management team for the next chapter in the company’s journey.”

Tarana Lalwani, Director, Innoven Capital, said, “Having been engaged with the brand’s performance for a while, we are particularly impressed to see Shiprocket’s contribution to young brands and SME’s in providing an efficient logistics platform. We are excited to partner with Shiprocket and look forward to a long-lasting relationship with the company as it continues to grow.”

Launched by Bigfoot Retail Solutions in 2017, Shiprocket turned profitable in FY 18-19 with an annualized revenue run rate between USD 25-30 million. Shiprocket processes more than 2 Million monthly shipments, enabling more than 35,000 sellers to sell directly to their consumers across India. Shiprocket has previously raised USD 13 million in funding from existing investors Bertelsmann India Investments, Nirvana Venture Partners, Beenext and 500 Startups who continue to back Shiprocket. The latest round gives nearly 30X returns in 5 years for Shiprocket’s angel investors who exited in this round. Early angels in the company include angel investor Jatin Aneja and 5ideas/Superfuel run by Gaurav Kachru and Pearl Uppal.

The Series C financing caps an exceptional year for Shiprocket where it saw rapid business growth, key executive appointments, and numerous product launches. Partnering with over 17 logistics providers, Shiprocket’s tech-enabled logistics platform connects merchants, consumers and supply chain partners across 26000 pin codes PAN India and 220+ countries and territories globally to create delightful shipping experiences.

About Shiprocket

Shiprocket is a new-age logistics aggregation platform that drives global and domestic shipping for MSMEs operating in the e-commerce sector. Shiprocket ships to around 220 countries and across 26,000 PIN codes in India with 15 courier partners on-board.

Incepted in 2016, Shiprocket today has 1.5 lakh sellers and has driven a GMV of more than $120 million till date. Some of the USPs of the platform include its AI-driven recommendation engine, cost-effectiveness (with domestic and international shipping rates), time-efficiency, data-driven approach, and easy-to-use integrated ecosystem for sellers (including Shiprocket 360 and Shiprocket Social) alongside others. This has enabled the platform to secure a YoY growth rate of 300% throughout and onboard customers irrespective of their operational/target geographies or business volume - emerging as the next-generation logistics enabler for e-commerce shipping in India.

Season 2 of Apple’s ‘Best Business Podcast of 2018’ - Building It Up with Bertelsmann launched

• Bertelsmann India Investments launches the second season of the podcast ‘Building It Up with Bertelsmann' with the first episode featuring Anand Jain, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of CleverTap


• After a highly successful first season, Ankur Warikoo, Co-founder & CEO of Nearbuy.com continues to host the second season of ‘Building It Up with Bertelsmann’


• The second season has also been launched in video format for all episodes and will be available on BII website, YouTube, Facebook and other video platforms

New Delhi, October 22 2019: Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), the strategic investment arm of the Germany based Bertelsmann SE & Co KGaA, launched the second season of its acclaimed Podcast - ‘Building It Up with Bertelsmann’ – India’s first growth focused podcast. Ankur Warikoo (Co-founder & CEO at nearbuy.com) hosts industry leaders and stalwarts of the startup ecosystem in candid and honest conversations about their experiences, learnings, failures and feats through the journey of their startup.

The podcast offers a microscopic view of how the businesses are scaled, how some mistakes are an inherent part of the journey, what frameworks are applicable and lots more. It is a must listen for anyone associated with the startup ecosystem or pursuing critical decision-making roles in an organization. BoringBrands, a new-age communications agency, is the exclusive outreach partner for ‘Building It Up with Bertelsmann’ Podcast.

Apple recognized the first season of Building It Up with Bertelsmann as the ‘India’s Best Business Podcast of 2018’, with a reach of more than 2.5 million. The second season continues to project the company’s vision of investing in innovative new-age companies with a winning potential. This season’s first episode features Anand Jain (Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of CleverTap), who talks about ‘Building a successful global SAAS business and pricing it right’. Anand delves deep into the strategies of building a global SaaS platform from India, monetising the product and unit economics, need to expand globally and the importance of collaboration, among others.

Commenting on the launch, Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director at Bertelsmann Investments India said “We are deeply humbled by the overwhelming response to Season 1 of the Podcast. In this second season, we will feature many more national and international icons of the startup community and share insights on building scalable high-growth businesses. In an effort to make this season even bigger, we have also launched a video version of the Podcast episodes.”

About Bertelsmann India Investments

Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) is a venture capital fund of Bertelsmann, a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world. BII focuses on series B and C stage investments in pioneering companies in the digital, education, media and services sectors. Since its official launch in 2012, BII has invested in 10+ companies including Saavn (music streaming service), Pepperfry (online furniture marketplace), iNurture (higher education services), Lendingkart (digital lending platform for SMEs) and Eruditus and Emeritus (IVY league programs for working professionals) among others. BII is part of Bertelsmann Investments, which houses the group’s other corporate funds such as BAI (China), BDMI (US and Europe) and BBI (Brazil) and cumulatively has almost 200 investments.

Lendingkart Raises $30 Mn in Funding from Fullerton, Bertelsmann India and India Quotient

Financial technology firm Lendingkart Technologies on Friday said it has raised a fresh equity funding of ₹212 crore (US $30 million) led by existing investors, including Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd (FFH), Bertelsmann India Investments and India Quotient.

With this funding round, the total equity raised by Lendingkart stands at USD 143 million, a statement said. In June, Lendingkart marked one of the largest startup venture debt transactions in India when it raised ₹ 80 crore from Alteria Capital, a Mumbai-based Venture Debt fund.

"The funding will be used to expand lending bases, deepen Lendingkart Group's reach to small and underserved micro enterprises and further strengthen its technological and analytics capabilities," it added.

Credit Suisse acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Lendingkart Technologies.

"This equity will help us meet the growth opportunities we are seeing. Micro and small businesses represent a vibrant yet underserved segment of the Indian economy," Lendingkart Technologies co-founder and Managing Director Harshvardhan Lunia said.

Lendingkart Finance, the NBFC arm of Lendingkart Group, has disbursed over 60,000 loans to more than 55,000 MSMEs in 1,300 cities. PTI SR

Furniture E-Tailer Pepperfry May Raise $100 Mn from Existing Investors

Private Equity fund of American investment bank, Goldman Sachs, along with Norwest Venture Partners and Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) may invest $100 million in furniture e-tailer Pepperfry, reported ET Tech, citing sources privy to the development. All three investors are already investors in Pepperfry.

The funds raised will help Pepperfry expand its offline presence and diversify to strengthen its position in furniture market which is riding on a wave set off by Global giant like Ikea, a Siss company entered India last year.

Ikea, along with search giant Google, are contemplating to enter Indian e-commerce market as they both are coming up with their own e-commerce stores under their own brand names respectively, to sell their branded products under one roof.

Existing investors of Pepperfry are looking at investing $100 million into the company and according to the report, fresh equity will be issued in the proposed round in which the investors will seek to maintain their level of holdings in the company.

In July 2015, Goldman Sachs, Bertelsmann India Investments and Norwest Venture Partners, have contributed in $100 million Series-D rounding of funding of Pepperfry. This was followed by an additional 210 crore investment in September 2016.

Founded in 2012, by Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah, Pepperfry.com has raised a total of about $198 million in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised about $34 million in March last year, according to data by Crunchbase. NOtably, in the same month of same year, Pepperfry's rival, Urban Ladder, too had raised $12 million from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital and Steadview Capital, in its second internal round of funding.

According to industry estimates, India's online home-furnishing and furniture retail market is expected to cross $1.1 billion in revenue this year, up from about $900 million in 2016.

Pepperfry Raises Rs 210 Cr in Series E Round of Funding from Existing Investors

Pepperfry.com, Indian furniture and home marketplace, has raised Rs 210 Crore in a fresh round of funding from current investors Goldman Sachs, Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Zodius Technology Fund. This is the largest investment raised by a vertical-focused, pure-play ecommerce company in India this year. These funds will be used to scale Pepperfry’s logistics & service network and to expand the Pepperfry Studios’ (Experience Centers) footprint.

In the last five years, more than three million customers have made purchases from over 10,000 merchants on the Pepperfry platform, leading it to a position of dominance in the online furniture and home segment in India.

In India, Pepperfry owns and operates the largest customer facing Big Box Supply Chain through 17 fulfilment hubs and a delivery fleet of over 400 vehicles, delighting customers across 500+ cities.

In the last year, Pepperfry has also extended its customer offerings to include Bespoke Interior Design Consulting and Project Management Services and has launched Pepperfry Studios in India’s six largest metros.

In these next few months the Pepperfry Studio coverage will be extended into Tier II and III towns, and in keeping with Pepperfry’s sharp focus on customer experience significant investments will be made behind Supply Chain Automation and the Big Box logistics network will expand to 1000+ Cities.

Ambareesh Murty, Founder & CEO of Pepperfry said, “Our mission is to help 20 million customers’ create beautiful homes by 2020. We are doing this through a differentiated, profitable business model and I thank our investors for believing in the team and for being great partners on this journey”.

Ankur Sahu, Co-Head of Private Equity at Goldman Sachs in Asia said, “Over the past year and a half, Pepperfry has continued to successfully innovate, grow its business and deliver on the macro theme of domestic consumption growth in India. In partnership with the talented management team, our goal is to establish a differentiated and sustainable leader in India’s rapidly growing ecommerce industry to stand the test of time.”

Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments said, "The Indian internet story has just begun and the furniture category is set to witness explosive growth over the next couple of years. Pepperfry is an exceptional brand and is well positioned as the market leader to ride this next wave of market expansion”.

Niren Shah, Managing Director, Norwest Venture Partners said, “Pepperfry is built on strong values and a differentiated business model. We have been fans of Pepperfry since its inception and are confident that Ambareesh and Ashish will continue to excite customers and create exceptional value for all stakeholders.”

Gautam Patel, Managing Director, Zodius Technology Fund said, “Pepperfry’s success lies in deep understanding of their customers by analyses of customer requirement and experience data. This latest round of funding is a validation of Pepperfry’s value proposition and our continued commitment to the business.”