Silicon Valley-based Fintech Startup Vested gets Funded by IP Ventures

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registered investment advisor, Vested has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Inflection Point (IP) Ventures. Founded in 2018 by Viram Shah, Darwin Arifin, Eric Huynh and Yinghan Lin, Vested is aimed at facilitating sustainable wealth formation by allowing local investors to go international. With a paperless Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process, fractional investing, streamlined fund transfers, commission-free investing, and advisory via pre-build portfolios, they have built a product compatible for Indian investors.

According to Vested, the funds raised via IP Ventures will be utilized in expanding the team and launching new products. Till now they have opened more than 7,000 brokerage accounts for investors all across India.

The founders of Vested come from four different countries and diverse career backgrounds. While Viram Shah is originally from India and has three-plus years of experience in investment banking at JP Morgan in India, Darwin Arifin is originally from Indonesia and has three-plus years of involvement in leading process development and project management at Sandia National Labs and Intel. Eric Huynh is originally from the US and has eight-plus years of practice in product and design. Yinghan Lin is originally from Singapore and has previously worked at Google.

“We are excited to be partnering with IPV via this fund-raise. Their network of CXOs is invaluable. It has already helped us acquire new customers as well as get connected to important business partners” says Viram Shah, CEO, Vested.

Vested offers pre-built portfolios called Vests that allow investors to invest beyond the FAANGs of the world. The fractional proficiency of the company allows investors to start investing as little as $1 in their favorite global companies. Vested has so far established partnerships with Indian banks to simplify the fund transfer process under the central bank’s LRS.

Speaking on his investment in the company, IP Ventures investor Dhaval Radia says “There is a huge market that is ready to be unlocked for Indian investors wanting to invest in US stocks, seamlessly, at their finger-tips. The platform provided by Vested is extremely simple and gets the job done. I expect a ton of sustainable growth for a platform like this, as the investors get more savvy and comfortable with investing in US.” 

“The thing that attracted me at first about Vested is the simplicity of its application. It shows the clarity of thought and customer-centricity, in all that they do. Then when I got to know the diversity and depth in the team behind it, I was convinced that it has all the right indicators for becoming a huge success,” Mr. Radia adds.

The investment advisor firm has bagged a prize of $20,000 at the UC Berkeley’s Launch Accelerator for its accomplishments. Whittling an international investing product localized for Indian investors, it has outstretched funds from investors across India, US, China, and Singapore.

With the partnership with the Broker-Dealer in the US, Vested has become as the only company to offer zero-commission US stock investing to Indian investors.

Over the past 5 years, $1.8 billion has been invested in international markets. This number is set to proliferate substantively as awareness about international investing increases and cost-effective and easy to use solutions become available to Indian investors.

Venture Catalysts Invests in Vested, A Platforms that Enables Indian Investors to invest in US Stock Market

India’s first, largest and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator platform, recently invested in Vested, an investment platform dedicated to empower Indian investors with access to the US stock market. The investment was part of Vested’s preseed round. The Vested platform has been conceptualized with sustainable wealth creation being the ultimate objective. Adding to Venture Catalysts’ high potential and burgeoning Fintech portfolio, Vested helps the rapidly growing investor community in India to diversify their portfolios globally via the US markets.

The Indian investor community is thriving. Currently, there are approximately 32 million retail investors and more than 60 million Mutual fund investors in India. In fact, the overall number of investors is growing at 15% annually. Vested has offices both in USA and in India. Further, India is the first market that Vested has launched in. The Vested product is an easy-to-use online platform with zero commission charges. They also offer education on the US market and the ability to buy fractional shares. Vested also helps its users with the remittance process and with tax tracking.

Vested was founded by Viram Shah, Darwin Arifin and Eric Huynh. While Viram and Darwin are avid investors themselves, Eric comes with massive experience in product creation. Viram was previously an investment banker with J.P. Morgan while Darwin acquired deep knowledge in new-age technological solutions at Intel. Eric was Director of Product at Azumio and has built over 30 products over the years, some of them being featured by Apple and Google.

Commenting on Vested’s founding story, Viram Shah, CEO and Co-Founder, said, “We met in the Bay Area while studying at UC Berkeley and instantly connected over our shared interest in entrepreneurship. All of us come from diverse backgrounds and countries but we all have first-hand experienced the pain of diversifying our portfolios internationally. Thus, Vested emerged as a solution that is a new-age global investment facilitation platform that enables investors to access diverse markets in an easy and affordable manner. We are excited to be supported by Venture Catalysts in this endeavor. Their investor network is large and diverse. We are looking forward to tapping into this network and the treasure trove of expertise that comes with it.”

Darwin added, “Getting an investment from VCats has been invaluable for our growth. The resources and connections that they bring to the table have been helpful to launch our product.” For Eric, the mentorship aspect of VCats’ huge investor network played a key role in helping understand the intricacies of India’s investment landscape. He adds, “We are excited about what VCats brings to the table for us. The connections and mentorship we have received has already been vital and we look forward to our partnership together.”

Anuj Golecha, Co-Founder Venture Catalysts said, “Vested is a one-of-its-kind platform that fills a long felt need gap of bridging investors from all over the world to local and international markets. The founders are highly experienced business professionals and have extensive domain knowledge in fintech, AI and analytics space. We believe that supporting Vested in its current phase will help them to build their product and team for rapid expansion across multiple markets.”