Amazon has entered the monetary providers and insurance coverage markets of India lately. Now it’s paving the way in which to foray into the wealth administration class.
The American e-commerce large has backed Bangalore-based startup Smallcase in a $40 million Series C financing spherical.
The spherical was led by Faering Capital and Premji Invest in addition to present buyers Sequoia Capital, Blume Ventures, Beenext, DSP Group, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures and HDFC Bank additionally participated within the new spherical, which brings its complete to-date increase to over $65 million.
Founded by three IIT Kharagpur graduates in July 2015, Smallcase affords a platform to assist introduce a brand new era of buyers to the Indian fairness markets.
The startup affords an in-house workforce of licensed professionals who provide over 100 portfolios of shares and change traded funds in addition to gives its customers entry to impartial funding managers, brokerages and wealth platforms.
The startup helps a dozen main inventory brokers in India together with Tiger Global-backed Upstox, and Zerodha’s Kite.
Smallcase has amassed over three million customers, who’re transacting about $2.5 billion every year. It says a person can begin making their investments in simply two clicks after signing up for the service.
“We have created a new, fast-growing category of investment products by developing an ecosystem of 250+ businesses in the capital markets space including India’s largest and fastest growing brokerages, advisors, investment managers and digital wealth platforms,” mentioned Vasanth Kamath, co-founder and chief govt of Smallcase.
“It has been both humbling and inspiring to see smallcases become the primary gateway to stocks & ETFs for millions of new investors. This financing increases our responsibility to continue building simple, transparent and delightful experiences and platforms, while delivering more value to our users and partners. Our true success will lie in developing the core building blocks for every investor’s portfolio and becoming a key part of their toolkit,” he added.
The startup, which employs 200 individuals, mentioned it plans to deploy the fund to broaden its expertise platform and win extra clients.
This isn’t the primary time Amazon has backed an Indian startup. The e-commerce agency, which has deployed over $6.5 billion in its India enterprise, has invested in ride-hailing agency Shuttl, bill discounting market change for MSMEs M1xchange, and direct-to-customer magnificence model MyGlamm.
Earlier this yr, Amazon additionally unveiled a $250 million enterprise fund to spend money on Indian startups and entrepreneurs centered on digitizing small and medium-sized companies within the South Asian market.
An Amazon spokesperson mentioned the corporate invested in Smallcase via its $250 million enterprise fund. “As part of this Fund, we are excited to partner with smallcase in their journey to offer innovative consumer investment products. By increasing product selection and convenience, this will provide an additional channel for consumers to participate in the equity markets,” the spokesperson added.
