Scripbox raises $21 million in funding round led by Accel Partners

Transpose Platform, DMI Alternative Investment Fund through The Sparkle Fund, InnoVen Capital, Trifecta Capital, KPB Family Trust, LetsVenture, Kube VC, and YY Capital LLC participated in the fundraising, as did angel investors like MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra, Freshworks CTO Shanmugam Krishnasamy, and Dell Technologies India MD Alok Ohrie.

The Bengaluru-based company plans to use the funds to bolster its new product verticals, expand its customer base and partner with more independent financial advisors.

Scripbox follows a hybrid model of digital as well as financial planners to help users manage their finances. Despite the launch of new verticals—including insurance, fixed deposits, domestic stockbroking—last year, mutual fund investments still contribute to almost 90% of the total assets managed by the startup.

The company had raised Rs 151 crore (about $21 million) in a 2019 funding round that was also led by Accel Partners.

“We have been prudent with our fundraising and will use the funds to systematically acquire new customers, continue our roll-up and partnership strategy with independent financial advisors as well as focus on growing our technology and engineering efforts,” Atul Shinghal, founder of Scripbox, told ET. “While we continue to leverage our technology stack to help customers with their financial needs, we also provide human touch to a complicated subject like finance through our telephonic chats with our financial advisors.”

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Scripbox has 35-40 financial advisors on-ground, which also double up as customer acquisition channels for the fintech startup. In December last year, Scripbox announced a strategic investment in Sebi registered investment advisory firm Mitraz Financial.

Shinghal claims that Scripbox will continue to invest and partner with more wealth advisors to bolster the platform. For the startup, wealth advisory contributes to almost 20% of its overall revenue.

At present, Scripbox has close to 70,000 active customers who have made average investments of Rs 7 lakh through the instruments offered by the platform. By 2025, the company looks to scale its total user base to 200,000, Shinghal told ET.

The average age of Scripbox users ranges between 40 and 45, with 25-30% of its customer base being new to capital markets and mutual fund investments. The company is planning to also launch a loan against securities product in the coming months.

“We could look at a lending foray with a focus on asset creation, mostly around home or education. We will not be focusing on the credit-line or buy now pay later segments,” said Shinghal.

Since inception, Scripbox has clocked close to 8.1 million transactions on its platform and has Rs 5,000 crore of assets under management.

“We have backed Scripbox since its inception, and continue to be super excited about their prospects,” said Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel. “Digitisation of wealth management in India is well on its way, and Scripbox, with a powerful yet simple product, is becoming a de facto leader in the category.”

On Monday, wealth management startup
IndMoney also raised $75 million, as part of its ongoing financing round, led by a group of existing investors including Steadview Capital, Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group.

IndMoney also allows users to track and organise their finances on a single platform and helps them invest across financial instruments, including mutual funds, fixed deposits, US stocks and bonds.

Last year also saw the rise of wealth management fintechs, with startups like Groww and Cred raising successive rounds, leading to an increase in their valuation.