Bengaluru, 23rd October 2019: In a funding round led by early-stage venture capital firm, Good Capital, Wealthy has raised USD 1.3 Million. Fintech venture capital firm, Emphasis Ventures (EMVC), also participated in the round. Wealthy’s previous investors include Venture Highway, Tracxn Labs, V1 Capital and Globevestor.
Wealthy is a fast-growing Fintech platform that enables professionals and other individuals to become Wealth Managers by providing them with digital financial products and training to succeed as independent entrepreneurs. This round of funds will be utilised to scale up its partner base and to continue further development of the platform to offer more financial products.
“Our focus is to build a strong base of partners that we call Wealth Managers. Over the last three years, we have realised that though there is a growing demand for online financial solutions that are convenient and paperless, there is an underlying trust issue that deters most end customers to build meaningful relationships. Our partners are helping solve this trust deficit by bringing a rules-based advisory experience to customers in their trust network” says Aditya Agarwal, co-founder of Wealthy.
Prashant Gupta, Co-Founder of Wealthy adds, “Our latest Fund-Raise will help us fast track the process of onboarding banking professionals who are looking for an independent career. Typically, their jobs today with any large bank or financial institution, is a one-sided relationship. The maximum benefit of this relationship accrues to the institution leaving both the banker and their clients short-changed. Wealthy’s bank-like financial services platform, software-led advisory, and, a cloud-based operation empowers these partners to build the career they always dreamt off and achieve a substantial increase in their income.”
Srimanta Patra, a Wealth Manager at Wealthy adds, “I had to step out of my comfort zone to leave ICICI, but, I am so happy I made that move. I am the boss of my own work now and in complete control of my earnings without needing to sacrifice my soul. My favourite part is the limitless earning potential and the technology support I get to onboard and service my clients.”
Arjun Malhotra, Founding Partner of Good Capital adds, “Wealthy’s approach in enabling middleman to better curate and serve the eventual customer is something that resonates well with our investment thesis. We have seen this theme play out across different industries and are excited to partner with a highly capable and execution-oriented team in Aditya and Prashant.”
Melissa Frakman, Managing Partner of EMVC adds, “Indian households with a large and emerging middle class deserve the transparency, cost-efficiency, and convenience of the country’s digital finance transformation, while still enjoying personalized, professional service from their advisor. We look forward to working with the Wealthy team as they build a next-generation network of technology-enabled advisors to service a growing need of Indian households.”
From Scaling Transactions to Scaling Trust
Wealthy.in began their foray into the fin-tech market in 2016 by offering tax savings investments in three clicks and then scaled their portfolio of financial products and services over the years. With its seamless and paperless investment solution, Wealthy acquired customers via word of mouth rapidly.. Encouraged by this early success, the team launched new product features and started to increase its user base.
As they scaled further, they found it easy to make consumers conduct small financial transactions via social media posts and digital marketing. However, the users who built meaningful relationships with the platform were those who were referred by their friends, or, heard about Wealthy from someone they trusted at their workplace.
Click moment for them ironically was on the day when the team was celebrating it’s best-month ever. Incidentally, relationship manager of the company’s account with HDFC was in the office and casually asked about the celebration. A casual question led to the realisation that a single relationship manager of HDFC was doing more business than Wealthy’s online-only operation. Wealthy had a superior product but was missing the ‘trust’ element that a HDFC’s relationship manager was able to bridge in his client interactions. That’s when the team sensed that the real opportunity lies in empowering these professionals with their technology-led approach.
“That was a turning point, prompting us to shift our focus from Transactions to Trust. In hindsight, we found that it only makes sense as people have always taking major financial decisions on the advice of other people, be it their friends, relatives, or their banker. This led us to introduce a layer of professionals who could engage end customers with a 360 degree solution“, explained Aditya further.
