Waterfield Advisors gets $6 mn Series A funding from Zephyr, TVS Capital

Mumbai-based wealth management firm Waterfield Advisors has raised $6 million in a Series A round from a group of fresh investors including investment firms and HNIs (high networth individuals). 

New York headquartered asset management firm Zephyr Management, private equity investor TVS Capital Funds, Lakshmi Narayanan, former vice chairman of Cognizant, and Gaurav Dalmia, chairman of Dalmia Group Holdings participated in the round.

In 2014, Waterfield Advisors raised $2.1 million in an angel round from RAAY Global Investments, along with its co-founders Amit Patni and Arihant Patni, in their individual capacity, according to data available with VCCEdge.

Waterfield Advisors will use the funds raised through the latest round to improve its advisory platform with talent scouting, technology infrastructure and expansion into international markets, said a statement.

TVS Capital Funds, founded by Gopal Srinivasan of the TVS Family, has assets under management of Rs 2,000 crores across three funds. It has investments in several listed companies, financial institutions and banks. Zephyr Management, which invests in India through the Zephyr Peacock India fund, has investments in several startups including education loan providers MPOWER Financing and Shiksha Financial Services, logistics firm 20Cube and food-tech startup Fingerlix to name a few.

Founded in 2011 by Soumya Rajan and Sanjay Teli, Waterfield Advisors offers investment and non-investment advice to family owned businesses, trusts and single family offices. It claims to have 60 business families in its kitty with $3.3 billion in total assets under advisory. Going ahead, the firm will seek to advise international family offices on their India allocations.

“The primary growth capital we have raised will help us to strengthen our first-mover leadership position. I am grateful to our existing investors Amit Patni and Arihant Patni for sustaining their faith in our unique value proposition, and to our new investors for joining our growth story,” said Soumya Rajan, co-founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors.

The firm, which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. It manages the family wealth of clients through its platform along with its financial institutional partners working with leading financial institution partners such as asset management companies and alternative investment firms among others.

While India has less than 45 known family offices, far less than the 7,000 single family offices globally, the segment is expected exponentially over the next 10-15 years, as per a Campden Family Wealth report.

In October this year, digital payments firm PayU led a $11 million funding round in wealth management platform Fisdom. In January, WealthTrust, a wealth management platform, was acquired by another fintech startup Orowealth, multiple media reports said. India Quotient Fund, along with several individual investors exited from WealthTrust through the deal. 

Digital payments players Paytm and Mobikwik have also entered the wealth management segment by launching its own platform and acquiring existing startup Clearfunds respectively.