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Groww beat every odd to get here. What beats it next?
In 2017, four ex-Flipkart engineers made a bet that looked seemingly ridiculous at the time. They decided to build a company that let anyone buy mutual funds directly, with no commissions or hidden fees. And then on top of it, they built it as a clean app that made it easy and simple for anyone to start investing.
Nobody thought it would work.
Well, it worked.
Nine years later, Groww is India's largest stockbroker by active clients, its most profitable consumer fintech, and the first major Y Combinator portfolio company in India to go public. ₹1,824 crore net profit in FY25. 83% organic customer acquisition. 81% of users outside the top six metros. A DAU/MAU ratio of 56% which is the kind of number you'd expect from a social media app. It even paid ₹1,340 crore in taxes to move its holding company back from Delaware to India, then listed on Indian public markets at an IPO subscribed 17 times over.
Every decision looked risky at the time and obvious in retrospect.
But Groww in 2026 is not Groww in 2017. The company that built trust by doing one thing exceptionally well is now building lending, wealth management, insurance, and its own AMC. The revenue line that powered its profitability i.e F&O is under regulatory pressure. And every other large consumer platform in India from PhonePe, Dhan, Dream11, Jio Financial are rushing towards the stock broking industry, arriving late to the party Groww built.
Praveen sits down with Anand Kalyanaraman, finance editor of The Ken who has tracked Groww since its earliest days, and Avinash Luthria, founder of Fiduciaries and one of eight SEBI-registered investment advisors who charges only an hourly fee. Praveen comes in with a strong prior — that Groww is one of the most consequential Indian companies of the last decade. His guests are here to disagree and add context to his claim. Anand comes in with the perspective of whether the valuation is justified, and Avinash on whether the business models and incentives that brokerage companies have so far can help them go ahead.
And the question everyone discusses: can the company that won by being simple stay trusted while becoming everything?
Additional reading:
https://the-ken.com/podcasts/first-principles/lalit-keshre-groww/
https://the-ken.com/story/growws-ipo-pitch-we-are-more-than-a-discount-broker-investors-really-show-us/
https://the-ken.com/story/get-a-loan-buy-more-stock-groww-and-angel-ones-latest-pitch-to-investors/
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By The KenIn 2017, four ex-Flipkart engineers made a bet that looked seemingly ridiculous at the time. They decided to build a company that let anyone buy mutual funds directly, with no commissions or hidden fees. And then on top of it, they built it as a clean app that made it easy and simple for anyone to start investing.
Nobody thought it would work.
Well, it worked.
Nine years later, Groww is India's largest stockbroker by active clients, its most profitable consumer fintech, and the first major Y Combinator portfolio company in India to go public. ₹1,824 crore net profit in FY25. 83% organic customer acquisition. 81% of users outside the top six metros. A DAU/MAU ratio of 56% which is the kind of number you'd expect from a social media app. It even paid ₹1,340 crore in taxes to move its holding company back from Delaware to India, then listed on Indian public markets at an IPO subscribed 17 times over.
Every decision looked risky at the time and obvious in retrospect.
But Groww in 2026 is not Groww in 2017. The company that built trust by doing one thing exceptionally well is now building lending, wealth management, insurance, and its own AMC. The revenue line that powered its profitability i.e F&O is under regulatory pressure. And every other large consumer platform in India from PhonePe, Dhan, Dream11, Jio Financial are rushing towards the stock broking industry, arriving late to the party Groww built.
Praveen sits down with Anand Kalyanaraman, finance editor of The Ken who has tracked Groww since its earliest days, and Avinash Luthria, founder of Fiduciaries and one of eight SEBI-registered investment advisors who charges only an hourly fee. Praveen comes in with a strong prior — that Groww is one of the most consequential Indian companies of the last decade. His guests are here to disagree and add context to his claim. Anand comes in with the perspective of whether the valuation is justified, and Avinash on whether the business models and incentives that brokerage companies have so far can help them go ahead.
And the question everyone discusses: can the company that won by being simple stay trusted while becoming everything?
Additional reading:
https://the-ken.com/podcasts/first-principles/lalit-keshre-groww/
https://the-ken.com/story/growws-ipo-pitch-we-are-more-than-a-discount-broker-investors-really-show-us/
https://the-ken.com/story/get-a-loan-buy-more-stock-groww-and-angel-ones-latest-pitch-to-investors/