India’s Population Is Becoming Wealthier and Fintechs Are Taking Notice

🍿 Quick Snack

• 🚀 India is creating more millionaires and they want to invest their money with fintechs.

• 🏆 This year, India ranked third among countries with the largest amount of top fintech companies.

• 👀 Point72 Ventures fired its Fintech team.

• 💸 +4 Funding Rounds

🍔 The Full Meal

Why India Is the Next Target for Wealth Management Startup Founders

India’s affluent population is growing fast.

The number of individuals with incomes of more than $10K USD per year will more than double in the next five years. At present, India lags behind the rest of the world in this category.

Also, the number of dollar millionaires in India is expected to surpass 10 million people by 2035.

This is where Fintech comes into play.

High Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs) need to park their money somewhere, and there is a very particular problem in India: portfolio underperformance.

Indian investors are also increasingly looking to diversify their portfolios globally, but the opportunities are limited. This is because of regulatory restrictions on offshore investments.

Inefficiencies + Friction = Opportunity

Wealth management in India has traditionally been relationship-driven and bespoke. Now, because of technology, these expectations are changing, across all age groups.

With more online active users — end-to-end digital solutions are now an essential part of customer experience.

VCs and Fintech founders love this as there is an opportunity to cut the middlemen out. The big bet is on deploying solutions that offer personalized and data-driven recommendations.

For example:

• smallcase offers smart investment portfolios curated by experts in one click. Investors include: Amazon, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures and Arkam Ventures.

• Kuvera is a free online investment management platform. They cover everything from fund selection, goal planning, tax optimization, to rebalancing.

• Jar helps users build saving habits by automating deposits. Investors include: Tiger Global, Arkam Ventures, Rocketship, and WEH Ventures, among others.

This year, India ranked third among countries with the largest amount of top fintech companies. This further underscore's the country's appetite and surge in digital adoption.

🍟 Extra Fries

• CNBC, together with market research firm Statista, has listed the top 250 fintech companies globally. Read the full report here.

• Point72 Ventures ditched its fintech team as part of a pivot towards investing in AI and defence technology startups.

💸 Funding Rounds

• TBC Bank | $38.2m: Uzbekistan’s only mobile-exclusive bank (link)

• Dezerv | $32m: wealth management platform (link)

• Tapi | $22m: payments processor for consumer-facing platforms (link)

• Care.fi | $2.5m: healthcare-focused small finance bank. (link)