Indian investment app Groww latest entrant to the unicorn league

By Leandra Monteiro

Indian online investment platform Groww became the newest start-up to join the unicorn club after it raised a fresh $83 million in funding led by Tiger Global at a valuation of over $1 billion. Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity and Propel Venture Partners joined the round.

The funding follows the previous round which took just six months ago when the company raised $30 million as part of its Series C funding in September last year, led by YC Continuity, Y Combinator’s growth stage fund.

The company aims to use the fresh funds to expand its range of products besides allocating a good amount of money towards introducing financial education content. Groww said that it plans to launch several financial education initiatives for millennials in the next two years in a bid to grow the market for financial services. A part of the funds will also be used to hire skilled staff.

“We started Groww almost five years ago 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,” said Lalit Keshre, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, Groww, according to media reports.

Groww is the second Indian FinTech to join the unicorn club this week, following Cred. With this, three Indian start-ups have become unicorns in the first week of April, including API Holdings, the parent of online pharmacy PharmEasy.