Over five months after securing its seed round funding, Raise Financial Services, founded by former Paytm Money CEO Pravin Jadhav, has announced its first acquisition.
It will acquire Mumbai-based stockbroking firm Moneylicious Securities and will foray into the online broking space, starting with the launch of an investment app.
Jadhav who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Raise told Moneycontrol that the startup will receive all necessary memberships and licences required to start an investment platform through the acquisition. Founded in 2012, Moneylicious Securities is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), plus a member of the stock exchanges NSE, BSE, and MCX as well as the Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL).
“Retail participation in stock markets has witnessed a significant increase in the past 18 months, this momentum and interest is irreversible. Most online investment platforms are currently focused on cash or equity segments and first-time investors. We believe there is a gap for existing users – super traders and long-term investors, even as 90 per cent of volumes on stock exchanges in a day are from trading. Acquisition of Moneylicious Securities enables us to enter the investment & wealth management space with a tech-driven platform that is built for these customers,” Jadhav said.
While Moneylicious Securities is currently an offline player, Raise will now focus on making it a pure-play online broking platform by introducing the invitation-only investment app. It will offer trading on all exchanges (BSE, NSE, MCX), across segments (Equity, ETFs, Futures, Options, Currency, Commodities), and all order types.
“Our aim is to launch the app in the next 12 to 15 weeks and present it to the customer,” Jadhav said. Raise also plans to introduce multiple products across financing, insurance, investments, payments, and wealth over the next few years, pitting it against incumbents like Zerodha.
Jayprakash Gupta, the founder of Moneylicious Securities has now joined Raise as Co-founder. Gupta said, “There exists a large opportunity to offer better and differential experience in Financial Services to users from Metros, Tier-I & Tier-II cities who are financially aware and literate. It's a great synergy with Raise, and I am thrilled to join Raise Financial Services as its Co-founder alongside Pravin in this journey.”
Raise will continue to explore similar opportunities to acquire startups/ventures across finance verticals and accelerate its go-to-market as well as ramp up its efforts setting up teams across product, technology, and operations, the company added.
Pravin Jadhav worked with mobile payments platform Paytm for three years and served as the Founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Paytm Money before he left in May 2020 to start his own venture. Incorporated in January 2021, Raise had announced its seed round funding in February which was led by Mirae Asset Venture Investments.
The round also saw participation from a host of notable founders and CEOs including CRED Founder& CEO Kunal Shah, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamoorthy, PhonePe Founders Sameer Nigam & Rahul Chari, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Jupiter Money Founder & CEO Jitendra Gupta among others.
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