Investment platform Groww joins unicorn club at a valuation of more than $1 billion

• Groww has raised $83 million as part of its Series D round at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
• Investors, including Tiger Global, Sequoia, Ribbit, YC Continuity, and Propel Venture Partners, participation in the round.
• The startup will infuse the raised funding to expand its product reach, hiring talent, and creating financial education platforms.

After API Holdings, an Online investing platform Groww, which competes with Zerodha and Upstox, has joined the unicorn startup club after raising $83 million in a Series D funding round at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The new funding round saw participation from New York-based Tiger Global Management, and existing investors, including Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, and Propel Venture Partners.

Previously, Groww had raised $30 million in Series C round in September last year, co-led by Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit, Propel Venture Partners, and Y Combinator Continuity Fund. That round valued the startup at $250 million. To date, The startup has raised over $142 million in its funding rounds.

Groww will infuse the raised funding to expand its product reach, hiring talent, and invest heavily in financial education and awareness initiatives, the statement said. Prior to Groww, Meesho, CRED, and Pharmeasy parent API Holdings attained unicorn status after raising million dollar funding this week.

Launched in 2017 by former Flipkart employees Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal, Groww offers an online investing platform for users who wants to invest in Mutual Funds, Equity market, US-listed Stocks, Fixed Deposit, and Gold. It currently has more than 15+ million registered users on its platform.

The new unicorn startup competes with leading investment firms such as Zerodha, Ratan Tata-backed Upstox, and Paytm Money.

“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,” said, Lalit Keshre, Co-founder & CEO of Groww.

He further mentioned, "Only around 25 million people in India are investing in stocks or mutual funds. We will continue working to change this."

On a side note, The pandemic hit has given a huge surge to online investment platforms in terms of account opening. In mid-June 2020, Groww had launched a stocks trading facility for do-it-yourself (DIY) investors, and since then more than 2 million accounts were opened on its platform, the statement said.

Lalit Keshre says almost 60% of its users come from smaller cities that have never invested in stocks/equities or mutual funds.

Currently, Zerodha and Upstox are leading in an online stock brokers segment, followed by ICICI Securities, Angel Broking, and HDFC Securities.

Follow IndianStartupNews on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter for the latest updates from the startup ecosystem.