Eight years ago, at a Y Combinator Demo Day, Insignia Ventures Partners’ Founding Managing Partner, Yinglan Tan, was watching over 60 companies pitch. One pitch stood out: an ex-Flipkart team working on disrupting the mutual fund space, albeit with minimal traction. Despite Insignia’s mandate being focused on Southeast Asia, Yinglan made it a point to hunt down the founder, Lalit Keshre, who shared that he grew up as a farmer’s son. This personal story, combined with the vision, was compelling enough for Yinglan to commit to an investment in their seed round, in the single-digit million valuation range, from Insignia’s first fund [2]. 

Read Yinglan’s full story on LinkedIn

While the investment was an outlier for a fund with a Southeast Asia mandate, the company would over the next eight years serve as a signpost for what the future of retail investing in Asia looks like.

Following their recent breakthrough IPO that comes full circle from their mission to democratize access to investing to themselves going public, we do a deep dive into lessons from their growth journey and how it influenced our succeeding investments into market making companies like Ajaib in Indonesia and VNSC by Finhay in Vietnam.

Here are five core lessons from Groww’s road to the public markets.

1. Solve a Fundamental Need with Radical Simplicity and Dis-intermediation (The “Roti, Kapda, Makaan” of Finance)

The first lesson from Groww is the importance of identifying a fundamental human need and solving it with simplicity, coupled with a powerful economic model. The founders recognized that in India, financial services were a necessity that was being underserved by complex, opaque systems.

Lalit Keshre, Groww’s CEO, articulated this vision:

“Financial services are a basic need like roti, kapda, makaan (food, clothing, and shelter)” [3].

This mindset drove them to build a platform that stripped away the jargon, the paperwork, and the complexity. Crucially, they leveraged technology to dis-mediate the intermediaries [2]. The traditional system was riddled with layers of fees charged by agents and brokers. Groww’s digital-first approach allowed consumers to pay less, making investing more profitable and accessible for the mass market. This combination of simplicity and lower cost was a catalyst for adoption, allowing them to tap into a large, digitally-native user base that was seeking a trustworthy, easy-to-use solution.

2. Build Trust, Then Scale the Ecosystem with User Maturity

In a country where financial trust is paramount, Groww understood that scale must follow credibility. Their strategy was a two-step process: first, build trust with a low-risk entry point, and second, scale the product ecosystem to match the user’s financial maturity.

They started with a focus on direct mutual funds [4]. This was their beachhead—a transparent platform that established them as a reliable partner for first-time investors. Once trust was built, they strategically expanded their offerings to become a one-stop-shop for investment needs, including stocks, derivatives, and other instruments.

This expansion was not random; it was a deliberate move to capture a larger share of the user’s financial journey. As the founders were building for a future where their users would:

“…grow up from the 20s to the 30s, bought cars and homes, started families, and ultimately stayed on their platform as their ecosystem of products expanded well beyond mutual funds and stock brokerage” [2].

By creating a seamless, integrated experience, Groww ensured that as their users matured financially, they would remain on the platform, fueling both growth and retention.

3. Build for the Next Billion (The Flipkart DNA)

The founders’ background at Flipkart provided them with a unique lesson: how to build a technology platform for the “next billion users”—the mass market in India that is mobile-first and value-conscious.

This “Flipkart DNA” meant building a platform that was robust, scalable, and designed for a diverse, non-English speaking audience in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. It meant prioritizing mobile experience and low-cost services. This focus on the mass market, rather than just the urban elite, is what allowed Groww to achieve its scale and market penetration, changing the landscape of retail investing in India.

4. The Evolution of Capital: A Reflection of India’s Maturing Ecosystem

Groww’s funding journey is a reflection of the maturation of the Indian startup ecosystem, both in the evolution of its investor base and the accelerated pace of its capital raises. The speed at which Groww moved from its Seed round to its Series E is a testament to the team’s execution and the market’s readiness, demonstrating a clear correlation between strategic capital and exponential user growth. This journey is a microcosm of the ecosystem’s own growth, which provided the necessary infrastructure and regulatory tailwinds for such rapid scaling.

The journey began with the Seed round in July 2018, where early conviction on the market and the team’s ability to execute on a large vision was provided by investors like Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightbridge Partners, and Y Combinator [15].

What followed was a remarkable acceleration of capital, directly fueling user acquisition. The time between their Seed and Series A (January 2019) was just six months, a period that saw the company reach its first 1 million users [16]. The gap to Series B (September 2019) was only eight months, a rapid pace—significantly faster than the median for Indian startups—that brought in validation from top-tier, domain-specific VCs like Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital, signaling readiness for rapid scale and product expansion [9] [10].

This capital injection was critical as the company scaled its user base to 5 million by early 2020. As Groww matured, the pace continued: Series C in September 2020, Series D in April 2021, and the Growth Rounds, such as the Series E ($251M) in October 2021, which attracted global, late-stage growth capital from firms like ICONIQ Growth and Alkeon Capital [11].

This final wave of funding coincided with the company crossing 14 million active users by mid-2025 7, demonstrating that the evolution of capital was perfectly timed to support and accelerate the company’s exponential growth in market share. The later-stage investors were not just buying into a company; they were buying into the proven thesis that a large, digitally-native financial market was ready to be captured, a thesis that Groww had successfully validated.

This success was underpinned by the maturation of the Indian ecosystem, specifically the development of the India Stack (Aadhaar, UPI) which enabled seamless digital onboarding, and progressive regulatory changes by bodies like SEBI that simplified mutual fund investing. The shift from early-stage specialist VCs to global growth funds like ICONIQ and Alkeon confirms the ecosystem’s arrival on the global stage, capable of supporting multi-billion dollar, high-growth fintech platforms.

5. The IPO: A Full Circle Moment in India’s Public Market Rush

The final lesson is the symbolic and strategic significance of Groww’s IPO. The company, which built its business on democratizing access to public markets for millions of first-time investors, has now gone full circle by becoming a public company itself.

This IPO is a public declaration of their intent to be a long-term company, a stable, trusted institution in the Indian financial ecosystem. It signals to millions of users that the platform they trust is here to stay, reinforcing the trust that was so painstakingly built in the early days.

Furthermore, Groww’s listing comes amid a significant IPO rush in India, where a diverse range of tech start-ups are tapping the public markets [12]. This momentum signals a maturing of India’s startup ecosystem, giving early investors a chance to exit and providing new investors—including the very retail investors Groww serves—an opportunity to participate in the growth of these new-age businesses. By going public now, Groww is not just achieving a milestone; it is leading the charge in a new era of Indian finance.

Conclusion: Groww’s Blueprint for Retail Investing in Southeast Asia

Groww’s success is more than an Indian phenomenon; it is a powerful blueprint that has profoundly shaped our investment thesis for retail investing across Southeast Asia. The core lessons—simplicity, building trust, and scaling with user maturity—are universally applicable to emerging markets with large, digitally-native, and underserved populations.

This thesis has guided our investments in companies like Ajaib in Indonesia and Finhay in Vietnam. The success of Groww has provided a clear playbook, and we see these companies executing on the same fundamental principles.

For instance, both Ajaib and Finhay have mirrored Groww’s approach to Radical Simplicity and Dis-intermediation (Lesson 1). Ajaib was built as a clean, mobile-first platform, simplifying the complex process of stock and mutual fund investing for Indonesia’s young, first-time investors [13]. Similarly, Finhay’s core offering is a simplified, low-barrier-to-entry investment platform, effectively dis-intermediating traditional, high-fee financial advisors [14].

In terms of Building Trust and Scaling the Ecosystem (Lesson 2), Ajaib built trust by focusing on a reliable user experience, then strategically expanded its ecosystem to include both mutual funds and stock brokerage, capturing the user’s full financial journey as they mature [13]. Finhay started with micro-investing and has since expanded its ecosystem to include a securities brokerage (VNSC), moving with the user’s growing financial needs [14].

Both companies are also clearly Building for the Next Billion (Lesson 3). Ajaib explicitly targets Indonesia’s massive, digitally-native youth population, building a product designed for the unique needs of first-time investors in an emerging market [13]. Finhay focuses on Vietnam’s young, mobile-first population, providing a platform that caters to a mass market previously excluded from traditional investment channels [14].

Finally, their ability to attract and evolve their capital base reflects The Evolution of Capital (Lesson 4). Ajaib’s ability to attract global capital, including its unicorn valuation, reflects the international confidence in its execution of the “Groww playbook” in the Indonesian market [13]. Finhay’s successful fundraising and strategic acquisitions demonstrate its ability to attract capital that supports its long-term vision of becoming a comprehensive digital investment platform [14].

The common thread is the democratization of finance through technology. Just as Groww proved that a large retail investing market could be unlocked in India by focusing on the customer, Ajaib and Finhay are proving the same in their respective markets. Groww’s journey provides the conviction that building a customer-first, low-cost, and comprehensive ecosystem is the winning strategy for capturing the next wave of wealth creation in Asia.