Fund Raise: Leveraging tech for wealth creation

Anurag Garg, CEO & Founder, Nivesh

Noida-based Nivesh is a mobile-first digital platform helping distributors of mutual funds and other financial products to deepen their penetration in the country. The platform enables distributors to expand their businesses and bring in new clients, who can now be serviced for different AMCs and hence experience improved portfolio performance. The company is founded by Anurag Garg, who had earlier co-founded mutualfundsindia.com and exited after acquisition by Icra.

Recently, this fintech startup raised $1.6 million led by IAN Fund. The round also saw participation from other co-investors including angel investors from Indian Angel Network, LV Angel Fund, Vir Mehta and Raghav Kapur. The freshly infused capital will be utilised for the expansion of product portfolio, specifically insurance and lending products, in addition to bringing more investment products for its partners and customers. The expansion will also focus on technology enhancement by bringing in automation where customers will be suggested products based on their needs.

“We are looking at making Nivesh a full-stack platform taking care of all financial needs of our customers,” said Garg. “So, we will continue to integrate all possible products towards that end. The aim is to increase the penetration of financial products like mutual funds, corporate FDs, insurance, etc., in India’s tier 2/3/4 cities. We follow a hybrid model of digital-first approach with human connect to reach people in every corner of the country.”

Sridhar Srinivasan is the other co-founder at Nivesh. Together, Garg and Srinivasan bring a complementary leadership to Nivesh which is targeting a large untapped market. Nivesh plans to enable access through more Indian languages for easier access to customers from different parts of the country and this will provide a huge fillip to the company’s growth.

In 2020, Nivesh was listed in WealthTech100, which is an annual list of top 100 of the world’s most innovative WealthTech companies selected by a panel of industry experts and analysts. The selected companies were recognised for their innovative use of technology to solve a significant industry problem, generate cost savings or improve efficiency across the investment value chain. The company has previously been funded by LV Angel Fund, Next Billion Fund managed by Windrose Capital, and marquee angel investors such as Vivek Khare, Basab Pradhan, Rahul Gupta and Sandeep Shroff.