Chiratae Ventures, Desai Family Office lead $6 mn round in Kristal.AI

Singapore-based digital wealth manager Kristal.AI has raised $6 million in a Series A round of funding, led by returning investor Chiratae Ventures and new investor Desai Family Office.

A group of undisclosed HNIs (high net worth individuals) from the financial industry also participated in this round.

With this round, Kristal.AI has raised $11 million, the company said in a statement.

In its last known funding round, the startup raised $1.85 million, led by Chiratae Ventures. Angel investors Shailesh Rao, senior adviser at TPG and McKinsey; and Amit Gupta, founding partner at Newquest Capital, also took part in the round.

The startup plans to use the fresh funds to bolster its technology back-end, craft more curated strategies and expand to the APAC and Middle East markets. Kristal.AI added that it would launch a new offering for the Indian market soon. 

“Traditional banking is changing. One of the biggest differentiators in the future will be an advisor’s ability to deliver real-time, highly-personalised investment experiences, and Kristal.AI is doing exactly that,” TCM Sundaram, founding partner of Chiratae Ventures, said.

Kristal.AI, established in 2016 by Asheesh Chanda and Vineeth Narasimhan, is a digital wealth platform offering wealth management solutions to investors. The company uses a patented genetic algorithm to recommend and create personalised portfolios. It provides investors and advisers with curated portfolios (branded as Kristals) created by financial experts. Each Kristal is based on a theme and comprises a variety of exchange-traded assets including stocks, bonds, currencies and alternative investments.

“The new-gen investor needs strategies personalised for their individual risk profile, lifestyle and expectations. Traditional banks offer such hyper-personalisation only to high-profile clients -- we are bringing it to the everyman,” Chanda said.

The company claims to have over $100 million AUM (assets under management), with 10,000 users on its platform.

Chiratae Ventures India Advisors is a Bengaluru-based venture capital firm advising over $700 million of assets across four funds. In September last year, it raised a $20 million investment commitment from World Bank arm International Finance Corporation for its fourth consecutive India-specific fund. The funds advised by Chiratae have invested in more than 80 companies across consumer media and tech, health tech, fintech, agritech, B2B commerce, logistics and mobility. Some of its notable investments include AgroStar, Bounce, Curefit, FirstCry, Flipkart (acquired by Walmart), Lenskart, Myntra (acquired by Flipkart), NestAway and Newgen.

Desai Family Office has interests ranging from fintech to boutique investments.