On a recent evening, Nikhil Dawe, a 35-year-old product manager based in Bengaluru, logged into his investing app — not to buy the next trending stock, but to try to answer a far more fundamental question about his future planning: Can I retire by 50?
This is a change that is now underway across India, say wealth-tech startups. The country’s retail investment boom has taken a new turn due to easy access, low-cost broking and growing interest in systematic investment plans (SIPs) as users seek guidance for long-term wealth creation.
“Instead of asking ‘what should I buy this week’, many people are asking ‘how should I allocate for the next five years’,” says Aditya Shankar, co-founder of Centricity WealthTech. “People are slowly realizing that wealth creation is not a product decision. It is about consistency, allocation, discipline and staying invested through cycles.”
This growth, in turn, is reshaping how wealth-tech startups are building products – and how they make money.
Funding trends reflect this change. From a relatively modest $21.7 million across 35 rounds in 2020, funding for India’s wealth-tech segment grew to $139 million in 2021, before briefly moderating amid tight capital conditions. The funding increases to $142 million in 2024 and is on pace to reach $135.9 million in 2025 over 36 rounds.
Neha Singh, co-founder of Traxon, says, “While deal volume has remained relatively stable, capital inflows indicate to investors a periodic re-rating of the sector, with funding leaning towards phases of strong market confidence rather than year-on-year expansion.”
More importantly, the direction of money flow has changed. Financial planning and advisory platforms have attracted the most capital since 2020 ($175 million), followed by savings and expense management platforms amid a broader shift toward holistic financial management.
Change in revenue model
“The industry has matured,” says Shankar. “Earlier, revenue models were linked to activity, i.e. transactions, brokerage, short-term flows. This works in good markets. Now there is more emphasis on sustainable relationships.”
At wealth management company Deserve, the change is even more pronounced. “About 95 per cent of our revenue comes from fees for PMS (portfolio management services) and AIF (alternative investment fund) strategies,” says co-founder Sandeep Jethwani. The underlying bet: Investors, especially the affluent, are more willing to pay for results – not just access.
It also highlights a flaw of the first wave of wealth-tech services: a lack of better results.
“Nearly six out of 10 portfolios uploaded for review by clients are underperforming their own benchmark indices,” says Jethwani, pointing to fragmented portfolios, poor asset allocation and behavioral biases. The result is a decisive step towards delegated or directed investing, including portfolio construction and management.
Shobhit Mathur, co-founder, Ionic Wealth, noted a 25-75 split between transaction-based and annuity revenues, indicating a move towards monetization linked to assets under management (AUM). He says ticket size and AUM per user varies across segments.
“For emerging high net worth individual clients, the average AUM is around ₹50 lakh, with the investment portfolio focused on mutual funds and publicly traded stocks. In contrast, HNI clients have an AUM of ₹1-25 crore, with the average AUM in the last one-and-a-half years being around ₹3 crore since our buildout,” he says.
development beyond metros
If business models are evolving, the geography of growth is also evolving.
“We are seeing serious participation from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities,” says Shankar. “Wealth creation is no longer concentrated in metros. The next chapter of Indian wealth creation will be much more geographically distributed.”
Deserve’s data offers a more detailed view. 24 per cent of users on its platform come from tier-1 cities, 10 per cent from tier-2 and tier-3 and the rest from other centres. But the more interesting insight relates to behavior. Investors from outside tier-1 cities invest more in mid-cap, small-cap and thematic funds, indicating increased confidence along with greater risk appetite.
Also, cost-consciousness and adoption of direct mutual fund schemes is almost the same across geographies – challenging the perception that investors from smaller towns lag behind in sophistication. “The average number of funds held at all levels is almost the same,” says Jethwani. “When the experience is the same, the behavior becomes the same.”
This convergence is significant, suggesting that money-tech platforms can scale nationally without rethinking product design, provided they address trust and sustainability.
expensive development
Yet, behind the growth story lies a grim reality.
Customer acquisition has become harder and more expensive in a crowded digital ecosystem. “There was a phase where growth was the key metric. Today, the quality of growth matters more – retention, revenue quality, user depth, trust,” says Shankar.
When the market is bullish, retail participation increases. When volatility comes, engagement goes down – especially among users who treat platforms as execution tools rather than long-term partners.
Divergence is becoming a defined fault line. “Directed customers remain stagnant. Purely transactional customers disappear,” says Shankar. Deserve, which focuses on higher-ticket business, reports close to 100 percent retention—underscoring the stickiness of advisor-based relationships.
The implication is clear: the next phase of wealth-tech evolution will be driven not just by the numbers involved but also by the depth of engagement and longevity of relationships.
From reach to results
India’s fintech sector is at a critical juncture.
The first decade was about breaking barriers – making markets accessible, affordable and digital. The next step will be about delivering results: helping investors navigate complexity, avoid behavioral pitfalls, and build lasting wealth over time.
As Singh says, the sector’s growth is driven by “the need for accessible, low-cost wealth management and advisory solutions.”
In that sense, the real opportunity for wealth-tech startups is not only to bring more Indians into the market, but also to ensure that they survive, grow and succeed in it.
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Published April 27, 2026