Ibibo Group founder Ashish Kashyap starts new venture INDwealth, secures $30 M in seed funding

Steadview Capital is investing $30 million in INDwealth, the latest venture founded by Ashish Kashyap, which will start offering wealth management services in January 2019.

Ashish Kashyap, the serial entrepreneur who earlier founded Ibibo Group, which was acquired by MakeMyTrip two years ago, has received a seed investment of $30 million for his latest venture INDwealth, which is yet to launch its operations. Steadview Capital, an India dedicated fund is investing $30 million in this venture.

Founded in June this year, INDwealth will be a full-stack wealth-tech platform that will leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning and will begin operations in January 2019. It will act as a one-stop solution for users to manage their investments, liabilities, future cash flows and taxation. For starters, it will target the affluent and high net-worth individual segments.

On the new venture, Ashish said in a statement, “Managed wealth in India is under-penetrated at less than 10 percent. The intersection of AI and machine learning with finance combined with the fact that managed wealth is an under-penetrated sector represents a large opportunity. As a consumer, there are several gaps and problems that I have experienced first-hand in this industry. Having identified the solutions, we are looking forward to solve the same by use of technology and by delivering a transparent, simple and intelligent user experience via INDwealth.in.”

INDwealth’s core value proposition will be to enable users to create financial goals and hence manage their future cash flows in a timeline format. The company is also in the process of building a team of certified finance counsellors across India that will be dedicated to each user family. The company plans to also launch other financial technology applications for different user segments and use cases.

On the investment in INDwealth, Ravi Mehta, founder & CIO of Steadview, said, “We see a massive opportunity for technology to democratise wealth management in India across income levels. Ashish is a proven entrepreneur who has demonstrated his ability to successfully solve structural industry problems using technology in the travel space, and we are very excited to back him to do the same in wealth management.”

Ashish founded Ibibo in 2007 and was associated with it for a little over ten years. He left the organisation in September 2017 after its acquisition by MakeMyTrip in October 2016. He also co-founded PayU-India (ibibo Pay), a leading payment service provider in 2011 that was consolidated by Naspers into a global entity in 2014.