Invest-tech platform dezerv has raised an astounding $7 million in its maiden seed funding round led by Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India as it looks to build a strong team and launch and ramp up its offering to re-define the investment experience for working professionals in the country. Dezerv’s round is among the highest for Indian startups in the seed stage.
The funding round also included participation from WhiteBoard Capital, Blume Founders Fund, Kunal Shah (CRED), Ramakant Sharma (LivSpace), Asish Mohapatra & Ruchi Kalra (Ofbusiness), Vidit Aatrey & Sanjeev Barnwal (Meesho), Varun Dua (Acko), Nitin Gupta (Uni), Anurag Sinha (OneCard), Shashvat Nakrani & Suhail Sameer (BharatPe), Revant Bhate (Mosaic) along with marquee family offices including Taparia (FamyCare), RK Kedia (Manjushree), CJ Shah and Neeraj Goenka (Texport) and leading industry professionals like Akash Saxena (Hotstar), K Rangarajan (Five Star) and Aashish Sommaiyaa (WhiteOak).
According to the founders, the start-up will be leveraging the digital adoption and scalable investment infrastructure of the country in the post-pandemic times, along with “decades of our experience to bring world-class investing to Indian professionals. We are excited to launch our unique Integrated Portfolio Approach that looks beyond selecting individual mutual funds, and delivers high performing portfolios while controlling risk.” Its platform is currently invite-only.
Founded by ex-IIFL Wealth senior managing partners Sandeep Jethwani, Vaibhav Porwal, and Sahil Contractor this April, dezerv aims to help the underserved working professionals in the country to take calculated risks with maximized returns with its integrated portfolio and expert advice. With the correct portfolio mix, users will also be able to unlock access to new asset classes – currently available only to high net worth individuals – such as curated, well-diligence-d high yielding bonds, and emerging high growth start-ups.
Its experts include alumni from prestigious institutions such as MIT, IIMs, IITs, and USC, and work experience from names such as JP Morgan, UBS, Uber, Brookfield, Morgan Stanley, and Clevertap. With their unique Integrated Portfolio Approach, built by investing experts, dezerv. plans to bring effortless investing to its clients, by providing a curated portfolio combination—handpicked for the individual investor and dynamic to keep abreast with evolving market situations, the startup said.
Considering the fact that most Indian working professionals lack access to differentiated wealth-tech solutions, the start-up’s work has been impressive.
“Digital-native affluent investors are on the brink of beginning their journey of building a portfolio across different asset classes. They need a solution-focused approach designed by experts and dezerv. aims to do just that. With their deep experience in wealth management over a decade, Sandeep, Sahil, and Vaibhav are best suited to solve this problem and we’re excited about partnering with them,” Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India, said.
