Grip Invest, a digital platform for facilitating new-age asset-backed investments, has raised INR 21 cr in its Series A round led by Venture Highway and Endiya Partners. The round also saw participation from AdvantEdge, existing investors Anicut Angel Fund and Gemba Capital, as well as ecosystem angels such as Satyen Kothari (Founder, Cube Wealth & Citrus Pay), Gaurav Gupta (CBO, Cube Wealth), Akash Sinha (Co-Founder, Cashfree), Reeju Datta (Co-Founder, Cashfree), Ankit Agarwal (CFO, Navi) and FMS Launchpad. This brings the total funding received by the company to INR 27 cr.
Grip aims to enable investors to create a more diversified portfolio by providing access and ease of transaction for multiple new age asset-backed investment options. The company currently allows retail investors to participate in lease and inventory financing transactions. Within 12 months of launch, Grip has become one of the fastest-growing investment platforms.
On the fund raise, Nikhil Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Grip Invest, said, “While fintech has revolutionized how we think about payments, stock-investing, loyalty rewards and money transfers, 99 per cent of retail investors are still left with just two investment options – fixed deposits and mutual funds. Grip’s mission is to change the way Indians think about investing and facilitate wealth creation opportunities with healthy diversified portfolios. At the same time, we want these investors to have direct access to finance growth and asset creation for the businesses of tomorrow. For example, 40 per cent of investments via Grip have gone towards building robust growth in the electric vehicles industry.”
“As a company that started in the middle of the first lockdown, we are learning to build a business in a totally new operating environment. Our team has met physically just once; our customers are present across the world and only interact with us digitally – we have to build new mechanisms for trust and transparency, both internally and externally,” added Aggarwal.
“VH is extremely excited to partner with the founders of Grip – they have a clear thesis, deep understanding of the customer segment, large FinTech market opportunity on both demand and supply, product-market fit and a very strong team. Mass-affluent retail investors in India are greatly underserved – other alternatives like P2P or revenue-based financing typically do not have the risk-adjusted returns that asset-backed products on Grip provide. There is a strong need for a platform like Grip, which is also reflected in the deep customer love with high repeats, high referrals and continually expanding portfolio size of early cohorts,” said Samir Sood, Founder, Venture Highway.
Sateesh Andra, MD, Endiya Partners said, “Indian retail (HNI and Millennials) investors have been on the constant lookout for great investment options in the risk-reward spectrum beyond the options at the extreme ends – bank FDs / insurance policies or stock markets / mutual funds. Grip Invest offers them a great opportunity to get higher fixed income returns along with the backing of an asset (lower risk). The team lead by Nikhil has a thorough understanding of the market opportunity and how to go about building a large company. We are excited to be part of Grip’s Journey.”
