Amazon backs Indian wealth administration service Smallcase in $40 million funding – TechCrunch
Amazon has entered the monetary providers and insurance coverage markets of India in recent times. Now it’s paving the way in which to foray into the wealth administration class.
The American e-commerce big has backed Bangalore-based startup Smallcase in a $40 million Sequence C financing spherical.
The spherical was led by Faering Capital and Premji Make investments in addition to current traders Sequoia Capital, Blume Ventures, Beenext, DSP Group, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures and HDFC Financial institution additionally participated within the new spherical, which brings its whole to-date increase to over $65 million.
Based by three IIT Kharagpur graduates in July 2015, Smallcase provides a platform to assist introduce a brand new technology of traders to the Indian fairness markets.
The startup provides an in-house staff of licensed professionals who supply over 100 portfolios of shares and alternate traded funds in addition to offers its customers entry to unbiased funding managers, brokerages and wealth platforms.
The startup helps a dozen main inventory brokers in India together with Tiger International-backed Upstox, and Zerodha’s Kite.
Smallcase has amassed over 3 million customers, who’re transacting about $2.5 billion every year. It says a consumer can begin making their investments in simply two clicks after signing up for the service.
“We’ve created a brand new, fast-growing class of funding merchandise by creating an ecosystem of 250+ companies within the capital markets area together with India’s largest and quickest rising brokerages, advisors, funding managers and digital wealth platforms,” mentioned Vasanth Kamath, co-founder and chief govt of Smallcase.
“It has been each humbling and provoking to see smallcases grow to be the first gateway to shares & ETFs for hundreds of thousands of latest traders. This financing will increase our accountability to proceed constructing easy, clear and pleasant experiences and platforms, whereas delivering extra worth to our customers and companions. Our true success will lie in creating the core constructing blocks for each investor’s portfolio and changing into a key a part of their toolkit,” he added.
The startup, which employs 200 folks, mentioned it plans to deploy the fund to broaden its expertise platform and win extra prospects.
This isn’t the primary time Amazon has backed an Indian startup. The e-commerce agency, which has deployed over $6.5 billion in its India enterprise, has invested in ride-hailing agency Shuttl, bill discounting market alternate for MSMEs M1xchange, and direct-to-customer magnificence model MyGlamm.
Earlier this yr, Amazon additionally unveiled a $250 million enterprise fund to spend money on Indian startups and entrepreneurs centered on digitizing small and medium-sized companies within the South Asian market.
An Amazon spokesperson mentioned the corporate invested in Smallcase via its $250 million enterprise fund. “As a part of this Fund, we’re excited to accomplice with smallcase of their journey to supply modern client funding merchandise. By rising product choice and comfort, this can present a further channel for customers to take part within the fairness markets,” the spokesperson added.
