Amazon, Premji Invest back fintech smallcase in $40 mn funding

smallcase, a leading capital markets-focused fintech company, has raised $40 million in a Series C round led by Faering Capital. The round also saw participation from new investors Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund (ASVF) and Premji Invest, apart from existing investors including Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Beenext, DSP Group, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures, HDFC Bank Group and Utpal Sheth (CEO, Rare Enterprises). The round brings the total capital raised by smallcase to over $60 million. 

A spokesperson for Amazon said: “In April this year, we launched a $250 million Amazon SMBhav Venture Fund (ASVF) to invest in early-stage tech start-ups."

“As part of this Fund, we are excited to partner with smallcase in their journey to offer innovative consumer investment products. By increasing product selection and convenience, this will provide an additional channel for consumers to participate in the equity markets.”

The capital raised will be used to launch better investment products for the retail investor. It would also help create additional value for smallcase’s partners by growing the ecosystem and enhancing the platform and its capabilities.

“The last 2 years have seen remarkable interest from Indian retail investors in the equity markets, and we are inspired to see smallcase become the primary gateway to stocks and ETFs (exchange-traded fund) for millions of new investors,” said Vasanth Kamath, founder and CEO at smallcase. “We are focused on expanding our offerings to cement smallcase’s position as the premier portfolio investing layer across asset classes for the retail investor and are excited to welcome our new investor partners with extensive experience in scaling technology and financial services businesses.”

Since smallcase’s Series B raise in September 2020, its user base has doubled to over 3 million and the volumes transacted in smallcase have grown 2.5x to Rs 12,500 crores. The suite of platforms and tools has continued to see widespread adoption by the industry. This includes deep custom integrations with 12 leading brokerages, the Publisher platform (a business-in-a-box solution for research analysts and advisors) serving over 125 established and emerging investment managers and the Gateway API being leveraged by over 50 digital wealth and distribution platforms. 

“Smallcase  is making investing easy for first-time investors and millennials," said Atul Gupta, partner at Premji Invest

Anugrah Shrivastava, founder at smallcase said the firm is working to scale its platform and technology to make company more valuable for both investors and our partners. “We are committed towards building a simple, transparent and essential investing ecosystem for India.”

With the close of the transaction, Sameer Shroff - co-founder and managing director at Faering Capital - will be joining the board of the company.

“Globally, we have seen a trend of increased retail participation in equity markets and in India,” said Shroff. “Smallcase is pioneering digital access for retail investors through their innovative products and channel partnerships.”