New Delhi, Oct. 6 -- Raise Financial Services, which operates the stock broking and investing platform Dhan, has raised $120 million (around Rs 1,065 crore) in a fresh funding round that values the company at about $1.2 billion (around Rs 10,650 crore), making it a part of the coveted unicorn club.
The Series B round was led by investment firm Hornbill Capital with participation from Japanese financial services firm MUFG and venture capital firm BEENEXT, the company said. Leading public-market investors such as Ramesh Damani, DSP Family Office, JM Financial Family Office, Aashish Somaiyaa and others also participated in the transaction.
The funding round comes more than three and half years after Raise closed its Series A round that was led by BEENEXT and Mirae Asset Venture Investments. The latest round represents more than a 10x jump from 2022, when it was valued at about $117 million, according to VCCEdge.
The fintech startup was founded by Paytm Money's former chief executive officer Pravin Jadhav, along with Alok Pandey, Jay Prakash Gupta and Raunak Rathi in 2021. It launched its first product Dhan in November 2021. It counts traders and long-term investors among its users, with nearly 1 million active users currently. It competes with the likes of Zerodha and Groww.
"We are humbled to have found early success and product-market fit for Dhan amongst the Indian retail trading community. With this investment we're excited to grow, innovate and double-down on our focus on Dhan, and at the same time introduce new products that are focussed on Investing, AI and expand into distribution of Financial Services," said Jadhav, founder and chief executive, Raise Financial Services.
Raise Financial Services intends to create an array of financial products to support delivery of educational content, financial data and deep analytics. It owns ScanX, a markets research tool for India with news; Upsurge, a platform for learning about Financial Markets; and Filter Coffee, a byte sized media content platform for GenZ and millennials.
"Hornbill Capital has tracked and invested in leaders of India's capital markets for over a decade. By staying deeply responsive to user feedback, Dhan has earned the trust of both traders and investors. We are delighted to partner with Pravin and the Raise team as they democratize access to high-quality financial information and further scale a truly best-in class financial services platform." said Manoj Thakur, Founder of Hornbill Capital.
Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Raise and its investors, and Veritas Legal acted as a legal advisor to Raise and its shareholders for the latest transaction.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.