Raise Financial Services, which operates stock trading and investment platform Dhan, is in early stage of discussions to raise around $100 Mn in a new funding round, which will propel the company’s valuation between $1.2-1.5 Bn, earning it unicorn status.
As per a Moneycontrol report, although the talks are still in the early stages, investment banking firm Avendus has been roped in to handle the transaction mandate.
Founded in 2021 by former Paytm Money CEO Pravin Jadhav and Alok Pandey, Raise offers multiple financial services in the stock broking space, primarily targeting users in Tier I, II Indian cities. Its portfolio of products consists of stock broking app Dhan, Option Trader app to facilitate options trading, Dhan Web platform, TradingView by Dhan and an API platform for traders called DhanHQ API.
Since its inception, the startup has also acquired brokerage company Moneylicious and edtech platform Upsurge.
Dhan is a part of Raise, which focuses on trading and investment and competes with larger rivals such as Zerodha, Groww, and Angel One.
For Dhan, the new funding round will be the largest since its inception, boosting its valuation from approximately $150 Mn to between $1.2 and $1.5 Bn.
Inc42 has reached out to the company. The story will be updated as per the responses.
As per the report, the fresh capital will support business expansion and enhance its competitive edge. While Dhan currently offers investing and wealth services, it plans to expand into financing, payments, and insurance to capture a larger market share. The round is expected to attract both new investors and existing backers, including Beenext, Mirae Asset Venture Investments, 3one4 Capital, and Rocketship.vc, though formal negotiations are still pending.
Raise Financial Services secured seed funding from Mirae Asset Venture Investments, with contributions from prominent angel investors such as CRED CEO Kunal Shah, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamoorthy, PhonePe founders Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, and Jupiter Money CEO Jitendra Gupta.
In January 2022, the company raised $22 Mn in a funding round led by BEENEXT, with participation from Mirae Asset Venture, 3one4 Capital, and rocketship.vc.
In August 2021, Raise Financial Services acquired Mumbai-based stock broker Moneylicious Securities and integrated it with the Dhan platform.
Besides, in June 2022, fintech platform Raise Financial Services announced plans to invest up to $500K in early-stage startups in the investech and wealthtech space, primarily in India.
In FY23, Mumbai-based Raise Financial Services achieved profitability, reporting a net profit of INR 7.16 Cr, compared to a net loss of INR 2.78 Cr the previous year. It’s operating revenue zoomed 25X to INR 20.74 Cr in FY23 from INR 82.14 Lakh in FY22.
