Ashish Kashyap returns as entrepreneur with IndWealth and $30 Mn cheque from Steadview

Entrepreneurship is a way of life for many serial founders who continue to believe in being in action rather than ending up becoming a catalyst - preferably, venture capitalist (VC), representing large behemoths or several other roles.

Ashish Kashyap, who led ibibo Group has made a comeback again as an entrepreneur with full stack wealth management app IndWealth. The yet to be launched platform also has announced that it’s raising $30 million from Steadview Capital.

IndWealth claims to be the first wealth-tech application from the company targeted at the affluent and HNI segments (across the web, Android, and iOS).

Kashyap is one of the several entrepreneurs who chose consumer-facing fintech segment to mark his comeback. Kunal Shah (ex co-founder, Freecharge) and Satyen Kothari (former co-founder, Citrus) also have entered personal wealth management space recently.

IndWealth is a flagship product of the parent entity Finzoom Investments. Scheduled to be launched in January, the platform claims to be ‘democratising finance for Indians’.

Currently, 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.

According to Kashyap, managed wealth in India is under-penetrated at less than 10 per cent. “Intersection of AI and Machine learning with finance combined with the fact that managed wealth is an under-penetrated sector represents a large opportunity,” he said.

Interestingly, Entrackr sources indicate that Shah fintech play would also be revolving around affluent and HNI segments. Details about his ventures are yet to be public.

Kashyap exited ibibo after MMT acquired it in 2017. He was the first Google India Head and veteran face in the ecosystem and led a clutch of properties at ibibo Group ( including goibibo, redBus, PayU India) amongst unsucessful e-commerce unit Tradus.

Since Kashyap and Shah fintech brainchildren focus on affluent and HNI segments, it would be exciting to see similarities as well as differences between the two products catering for more or less same audience base.