Angel One acquires fintech firm DStreet Finance to focus on GenZ engagement

Acquisition

NSE Listed-stock broking firm AngelOne on November 2nd announced that the firm is acquiring Bengaluru-based fintech startup DStreet Finance for an undisclosed amount mainly to focus on content generation and education among GenZ and younger traders and investors.

“DStreet has done multiple things specifically for the GenZ customers and their needs by the way they engage with capital markets like tools, content and learning about the market. We feel these synergies will be great for AngelOne,” Said Prateek Mehta, Chief Business Officer at Angel One in an interaction with Moneycontrol.

Mehta clarified that it is a team acquisition and the assets and shares have not been acquired by Angel One.

Founded by Suresh Bavisetti and Paarth Dhar, Dstreet Finance specialises in content and engaging learning experiences tailored for emerging stock market investors.

Since its establishment in April 2021, the platform onboarded and served over one million users. Dstreet Finance had previously garnered investments from notable backers including ICICI Securities, Expert Dojo, Archana Priyadarshini, and Mumbai Angels.

The team at Dstreet Finance has joined Angel One to spearhead content, user engagement, and learning-related initiatives, the firm said in a statement.

Mehta added that Angel One is keen on the inorganic expansion route and will be looking for more interesting startups to collaborate with.

“We are open to collaborating with more startups, we need to see if the firm is working on any solid problem statement, aligns with our culture, and can also help us scale up faster in areas where we don’t have a lot of presence is the idea behind our inorganic play,” He said.

Leading online stock brokers are increasingly focussing on education and content creation especially in vernacular languages to reach younger users as well as users across tier III and IV cities in India.

In fact, one of the largest online stock brokers Zerodha on October 24th launched its Youtube Channel initiative called ‘Zerodha Zing’ in collaboration with LearnApp.

“We are happy to announce the launch of Zing! by Zerodha, a new YouTube channel that aims to have a fun take on finance lessons and education that we have always offered through our educational initiatives,” Zerodha wrote on its website.

Similarly, Groww has been focussing on stock market education through its YouTube channels and even has vernacular content like Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi. This also gave Groww an edge over other players.

This move by Angel One comes on the heels of its recent in-principle approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to sponsor a mutual fund. The brokerage firm said it would be setting up an asset management company (AMC) and the trustee company.

Angel One is also expanding its customer solutions into Wealth Management, Insurance, and Lending products.

“We are expanding our offerings, so we will be looking at joining hands with a lot of like-minded people and accelerate the entire value creation for us,” Mehta said.

The firm recently reported its consolidated quarterly numbers where the Net Sales were recorded at Rs 1,047.90 crore in September 2023 up 46.21% from Rs. 716.73 crore in September 2022. Quarterly Net Profit was at Rs. 304.50 crore in September 2023 up 42.59% from Rs. 213.56 crore in September 2022.