Tiger Global-led funding round propels Groww into the unicorn club

Nextbillion Technology, which operates investing platform Groww, announced that it has raised $83 million (Rs 617.78 crore according to current exchange rates) in a growth funding round, at a valuation of $1 billion. 

Led by Tiger Global, returning investors Sequia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity and Propel Venture Partners also participated in the round, a statement said.  

The startup, operational for less than five years, joins three other unicorns – Meesho, PharmEasy and Cred -- that entered the coveted club this week.

The latest funding round comes months after it raised $30 million in a Series C round from YC Continuity and others. 

Groww plans to use the fresh capital to expand its product suite, hire new teams and invest heavily in financial education and awareness, the statement said.  

Financial education content has been a critical focus for Groww since inception and in the next two years, the Bengaluru-based startup plans to launch a slew of initiatives in the segment aimed at millennials and expand the market for financial services. 

“We started Groww almost five years back to make investing accessible and transparent to everyone in India. We have made good progress, but it feels we have just got started. Only around 25 million people in India are investing in stocks or mutual funds. We will continue working to change this. The new capital will help us invest in new products, acquire talent and continue building our financial education platforms,” Lalit Keshre, co-founder and CEO, Groww, said in a statement. 

Founded in 2017 by Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, Ishan Bansal, Groww started as a mutual fund exploring and investing platform, eventually launching stocks, IPOs, digital gold and ETFs.  

Groww launched stock investing in June last year targeting retail investors and has already opened 18 lakh demat accounts since then. 

Currently, Groww has 1.5 crore user across over 900 cities. The startup has been registering more than 2.5 lakh new SIPs every month. 

Groww competes with investing digital broking apps such as Upstox, Zerodha and Paytm Money.