Social Investment and Gaming Platform StockGro Concluded $32 Mn from BITKRAFT Ventures, General Catalyst, and Itai Tsiddon

The funding round was led by marquee Global investors BITKRAFT Ventures, General Catalyst and Itai Tsiddon along with prominent angel investors.

StockGro will use the funding in global expansion and hiring

Financing includes primary and secondary investment

StockGro, India’s largest social investment platform, announced today that it has concluded a 32 million USD Series A round. The round was led by marquee global investors including BITKRAFT Ventures, General Catalyst, and Itai Tsiddon (Co-founder of Lightricks - Unicorn in Israel), with participation from existing backers such as Roots Ventures, Creed Capital Asia. The above also included commitment for Secondary financing for its early backers which would lead to multi-fold returns on their previous investments.

 

StockGro Team

A syndicate of Prominent angel investors which includes Base10 Capital Founders, Junglee Games founder Ankush Gera, Nazara Technologies founder Nitish Mittersain and Founding member of Robinhood also participated in this round. StockGro plans to use the funding to tap into more markets, introduce new product offerings and aggressively ramp up its hiring across all functions.

Founded in January 2020 by former venture capitalist Ajay Lakhotia, StockGro is Asia’s first social investment platform with a fun and interactive virtual interface that enables users to learn about and participate in stock markets. StockGro doubled its user base in the last quarter from 5M in October to 10M as of January 2022. “The above user base marks a significant milestone for our Company as it demonstrates strong conviction and love from our users for our platform,” commented Ajay Lakhotia on the above growth.

This is among the largest Series A rounds raised by fintech start-ups in India, raising the total funding commitments for the Bengaluru-based company to about USD 40 million.

"Having set up a solid foundation, our aim is to build a disciplined culture of trading in India and help the digital generation of today to invest in an informed and learned manner. The funding further reinforces the faith of our investors in our vision of bringing this transformation," said Ajay Lakhotia, Founder & CEO, StockGro.

Commenting on the fundraise, BITKRAFT Ventures said, “The democratization of finance and investment is an important global theme that is re-defining the culture and values of younger generations. Nowhere is this more clear than in India, where less than 2% of the population currently invests in the stock market. Gamification and competitions not only engage new and aspiring investors, but also drive superior educational outcomes with a "play & learn" product. StockGro has a unique opportunity to facilitate the transition of wealth into new asset classes, not just with stocks but also with its expansion into crypto and other assets, and we are proud to be working with Ajay on the front lines of this transformation.”

General Catalyst added, “We are very excited to be investing in StockGro and to partner with Ajay and his ambitious team. We were captivated by their vision to help educate Indian consumers on how to become better investors. StockGro empowers them to do so via engaging with a fun and interactive product. We are looking forward to seeing team StockGro scale their user base with the funds from this round in order to achieve their compelling vision.”

Social Investment Platform StockGro Crosses 5 Million App Downloads, To Cross 50Mn by Next Year

Indian FinTech Platform StockGro crosses 4.5 million active users in less than 15 months

India’s first social investment platform StockGro has set a new benchmark in the investment and trading sector, on boarding 5 million users in just 15 months. The outstanding growth makes StockGro journey unique and unparalleled with other apps in the country, catering to users between ages 18 years to 30 years who are keen to try their hand at trading and improve their investing knowledge. The growth has been made possible with the help of 4.5 million active users.

StockGro’s gamified interface is making trading and investment more approachable. Young users engage in mock sessions, interact with experts and community members, and leverage virtual money to fine-tune their trading and investing skills.

Over the last 15 months, StockGro has become a hit with students and communities across top B-schools in India like IITs, IIMs, ISB, FMS and has conducted over 500+ skill-building events. The app encourages, empowers, and equips members with the knowledge and skills they need to enhance their trading expertise.

Ajay Lakhotia, Founder-StockGro states, “We have distributed over INR 56 crore in Prize Money to our users across India building world-class trading and investment strategies beating the markets week on week. These users come from various walks of life and irrespective of their qualification, they have an amazing grasp over their subject, sector, and Price-Action trend that they are able to predict the Stock price with precision and accuracy helping them gain a huge fan following on StockGro platform.”

On StockGro, we celebrate such users and their love for sharing their knowledge of the craft with their followers, helping them learn investment strategies, and generate extraordinary returns. We are definitely going to make the next generation of millennials “Investment Ready”.

StockGro is now the default platform across B-Schools and Colleges in India, with over 325 educational institutes hosting Stock Market competition on StockGro. The platform gives students an opportunity to hone their skills and gain proficiency without taking real money exposure.

Social Investment Start-up Stockgro Raises $5 Mn in Pre-series A Round

StockGro will use the funding in strengthening its user base, hiring tech talent and building new features

National, 4th August 2021: StockGro, a social investment startup, has raised $5M in a pre-Series A round of funding. The round was led by Roots Ventures and Velo Partners. The company will use the funding to grow its user base, hire tech talent and build new features.

StockGro was founded in January 2020 by Ajay Lakhotia, a former Venture Capitalist, with an aim to help people learn and participate in stock markets. StockGro is Asia’s first social investment platform with a gamified virtual interface that enables users to discover trading strategies, compete and interact with some of the country’s best minds. With more than 1 million User Bases, StockGro has over 80% month-on-month retention.

Ajay Lakhotia, Founder-StockGro said -

Our culture, our education system teaches us how to save money but no one teaches us how to invest money. At StockGro we are on a mission to make Millennials investment-ready. With over 1 million active users on the platform within 9 months of launch, StockGro has become the primary social investment platform for the millennials. Global investors aligned to our vision have come on board to support us in democratizing investments for the next generation.

The platform allows ordinary individuals to initiate their investment journey without taking any risk and get rewarded for building the best investment portfolios. Best performing traders & investors win award money gaining followers and become popular socializing their investment strategies and thesis.

StockGro now has leading fund managers, F&O traders, and algo traders driving their social groups, helping users learn various trading strategies and test their thesis on StockGro platform.

Commenting on the fundraise Japan Vyas, Roots Ventures said, “StockGro is gamifying stock investing and making it more social. These are compelling elements in one platform providing an educational interface to aspiring investors and traders, tremendous exchange of ideas and information amongst participants and on the whole democratizing investing and trading. We look forward to working with Ajay and the team in its growth journey”

Andrew Reader of Velo Partners added, “Encouraging education, and engagement with the younger generation around investing in the stock market is essential. With less than 10% of Millennials actively investing in Stock Markets, StockGro is standing at the junction of growing the TAM of active investors. StockGro founder Ajay brings the right experience, knowledge, network, and passion to unlock this multibillion-dollar potential market.”

In last nine months, StockGro has become the primary platform across the 105-B Schools and colleges to learn trading and investment. Recently, StockGro has partnered with NIRC, the Northern India Regional Council of ICAI to launch exclusive StockGro leagues for CA Students & Professionals. The partnership was aimed at helping over 6 lac students and 1 lac professionals learn the nuances of Stock market.

Earlier in December 2020, StockGro raised around $1M in an angel round of funding from Unicorn Founders – Kunal Shah of Cred, Vivekananda Hallekere of Bounce, Rahul Garg of Moglix, Ramakant Sharma of Livspace and prominent Fund Managers like Varun Laul of Investcorp, Ashish Sharma of Innoven Capital, Rohit Sood of Bertelsmann, Ankit Agarwal of Alteria Capital, Tej Kapoor of Fosun, Karthik Bhat of Ubiquity and Family Offices including Creed Capital, Luminaire Capital and Mark V Capital. Falcon Edge Partners are also among the prominent investors in StockGro.