Zerodha rival Dhan becomes India’s newest unicorn after raising $120 million

Raise Financial Services, the parent company of stock-trading platform Dhan, has raised $120 million (about Rs 1,000 crore) in a Series B funding round led by Hornbill Capital, with participation from Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), BEENEXT and several prominent public-market investors including Ramesh Damani, DSP Family Office, JM Financial Family Office and Aashish Somaiyaa.

Advertisment

The round values the Mumbai-based fintech startup at $1.2 billion, marking its entry into India’s unicorn club.

Founded in 2021 by Pravin Jadhav, Alok Pandey, Jay Prakash Gupta and Raunak Rathi, Raise is building a technology-led ecosystem of financial products.

Its portfolio includes Dhan, a retail-focused trading platform; ScanX, a real-time market-research suite; Upsurge, an investor-education platform; Filter Coffee, a Gen Z-oriented financial-content hub; and Fuzz, an AI model trained on large financial datasets to deliver contextual insights.

“The company has been cash-flow positive for nearly three years, and we had the patience and capital to navigate regulatory changes and give comfort to our incoming shareholders,” said Pravin Jadhav, founder and CEO of Raise Financial Services.

Most of the $120 million infusion came as primary capital, with a small secondary component involving early individual backers. Avendus Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor, while Veritas Legal advised the company and its shareholders.

Dhan, launched in late 2021, has nearly one million active users and offers a suite of trading tools including Options Trader by Dhan, Dhan Charts and DhanHQ APIs for power traders and long-term investors.

The fresh capital will be used to scale Dhan, strengthen its technology and AI stack, and introduce new investing and distribution-focused products. Raise also plans to expand its margin-trading funding book, invest in omnichannel distribution, and deepen its AI model Fuzz.

According to filings with Care Edge, Moneylicious Securities, the entity that operates Dhan and was acquired by Raise in 2021, reported gross revenues of Rs 379.2 crore in FY24, up eightfold from Rs 48.4 crore a year earlier, and a net profit of Rs 177.35 crore versus a loss of Rs 26.69 crore in FY23.

The fundraise comes as the SEBI tightens rules on futures and options trading to curb speculative activity. Jadhav said these changes have affected nearly 40% of industry trading volumes, but Dhan has gained market share for 16 straight quarters.

NSE data shows Dhan accounted for 2.13% of active traders in August, up from 2% in June. Raise joins a growing cohort of profitable Indian fintech unicorns as rivals like Groww prepare for public listing to raise Rs 7,000 crore and Angel One trades at a market capitalisation of about Rs 20,000 crore. Jadhav said an IPO for Raise could be four to five years away.