Financially fearless: Interview with Priti Rathi Gupta, Founder of LXME

By Puja Sharma

Priti Rathi Gupta is a founder, producer – and juggles many such hats – however, at the base of all her ‘day jobs’ is the aspiration to bring empowerment and equal opportunity to women.

Married at 19, Priti, relegated all her dreams and aspirations to be pursued at a later stage but soon went back to college, got back to working full time, and has made headway in the financial services industry – an industry dominated primarily by men– to become one of the most influential and celebrated women in her field.

Launched in early 2018, LXME, India’s first women’s only financial platform gives tools as well as education on financial planning. It aims to help women across professions, work experience, lifestyles, and age groups to invest, thereby creating a community of financially aware and empowered women. LXME is here to bridge the gap between women and finance with an expert-backed hassle-free financial platform curated for women.

IBS Intelligence interviewed Gupta to learn more about LXME and how it is empowering women to become financially independent.

How did you come up with the idea of LXME?

Financial planning, money management, and investments have traditionally been male-dominated and -oriented. Even with women excelling in all fields of life and becoming increasingly independent, their financial planning still takes a backseat, and men of the family handle it themselves.

I had long been mulling over the thought of financial empowerment for women and it was during a presentation for a class on strategy at Harvard Business School that an inkling of an idea was transformed into a business idea. Having worked in the financial services sector for almost two decades, I understood and experienced that financial services companies considered men to be their primary audience and were keen to turn the industry on its heel to make it more accessible for women.

I made it my life’s mission to educate women about investing. To that effect, I founded LXME, India’s first financial platform for women to inspire a wave of financially fearless women to actively manage their money and achieve their dreams. Today, LXME is a fast-growing robust community-led financial management, planning, and education platform for women.

In terms of financial literacy, how do you plan to educate women?

Encouraging women to have money conversations is the first step towards breaking the barrier of women and money management followed by rich relevant content on demystifying financial jargon.

LXME stands for something much greater than each woman – a robust ecosystem of financially fearless women to take back matters of financial autonomy into their own hands. It aims to help women across professions, work experience, lifestyles, and age groups to invest in a very easy and simplistic manner, serving not just as a financial planning platform, but also as an educative portal and community of financially empowered women.

What LXME does differently is extending this journey of awareness and education to action through a hassle-free and easy investment platform offering curated financial products for the differentiated financial needs of women. This makes LXME a holistic one of its kind financial platform for women.

What are the products you are currently working on?

With a mobile application and online portal which demystifies complex financial products and makes it easy for women to invest with just a few taps, LXME is a holistic one of its kind financial platform for women.

• Community: At the heart of LXME is a safe and trusted community of women who actively ask, learn and share about money decisions and managing personal finances that enables collective growth. This is the first step towards starting your investment or financial planning journey.
• Resources: To help women overcome the barrier of financial jargon and risk associated with financial planning and instruments, LXME offers palatable and tailored content across formats from blog posts to videos and interactive workshops that help women make informed investment decisions.
• Financial tools: An uncomplicated and easy-to-use platform with goal-based investment and financial planning tools. (Mutual Funds, Gold and more)

What would be your growth strategy for the next fiscal year?

The future of financial freedom for women is the onset of an evolutionary change, and it begins with a simple adaptation of money management, as a life skill.

We aim to make LXME the all-in-one money app for women. Our community-led product extension strategy is aligned with earn, save, spend and invest- making women manage money better and more efficiently. As per Crisil, India’s MF industry could grow to 50 lakh crore in 2025 as opposed to 30 lakh crore in Nov 2020. Fintech platforms like ours that cater specifically to women will play a substantial role in powering this growth.

To be truly independent, financial freedom should be the topmost privilege that every woman should aim for. Women are born money managers. When armed with the right attributes of being risk-aware, disciplined, making informed decisions, and staying calm under stress, women can go from managing home budgets to smart investors.

When women begin to invest and grow their money, they carry the potential to bring about a societal change, because they begin by investing back into their community and children. My personal goal of making women financially prudent and independent aligns with what LXME is set you to do by 2025- making 3 million women financially educated and enabling 300,000 women with their investment journey.

Are you also looking to deepen your presence, where, and why?

The market in India is humongous and an exciting challenge for any business with larger numbers of audiences remaining untapped. While it may take a significant amount of time to cover such a varying and large audience, LXME’s core target audience assertion remains to be significantly psychographic as opposed to being demographic.

Our core target audience currently is women between the ages of 22-40 who are used to online transactions, online banking, eCommerce, wallets, etc with access to facilities availed by a professional or home-maker.

What are the challenges you have faced as a women entrepreneur in the male-dominated FinTech ecosystem?

While setting up the commodities business, I went to markets where people refused to acknowledge me and preferred to talk to my male colleague instead. Those were the challenging times that made me stronger. From making my way to the male-dominated industry forums to now setting up LXME, I’ve come a long way in the financial services industry – an industry that has always been dominated by men.

When I started LXME, nobody was taking up the challenge of providing the right financial education to encourage women to invest even though India has no shortage of financial advisors.

Essentially advisories, constitute nothing that helps women in end-to-end financial planning. I wanted to create something easy yet aspirational. A platform that not only makes it very easy for women to start their journey of investing but also liberates them to aspire to do what every smart woman does.

We live in a society that perpetuates money myths such as women are not interested in how money works. However, more women than men are graduating with degrees today. More women are in full-time employment. They are earning more and have greater disposable income to spend, save, and invest. Women entrepreneurs are building new companies, creating new markets, and fast becoming prominent wealth creators

Please tell us a little about Anand Rathi and its milestones.

Established in 1994, Anand Rathi is one of India’s leading financial services firms offering Wealth Management, Investment Banking, Corporate Finance & Advisory, Brokerage & Distribution services in the areas of equities, commodities, mutual funds, structured products, insurance, corporate deposits, bonds & loans to institutions, corporations, high-net-worth individuals and families.

The firm has a vast footprint across India and also in select international locations such as Dubai, with a presence across 1200 locations through its branches, sub-brokers, and remixers, and representative offices/associate companies.

Anand Rathi Wealth Limited part of Anand Rathi Group recently embarked on a new phase as the company successfully got listed on the Indian bourses.

Any comments for the IBSi readers?

Women entrepreneurs are taking charge in every industry today and emerging as great leaders of tomorrow. There are less than 30% of women in FinTech, and less than 5% of them are CEOs and hence it becomes more important than ever to decrease the gap between men and women in the fintech industry to improve the product development process that addresses the needs of all users and generates diversity across the entire playing field for success. With the right infrastructure and support, this ever-evolving business industry can create an environment to encourage women in the workplace to be fierce and challenge obstacles.