In 2017, four ex-Flipkart engineers made a bet to build a company that let anyone buy mutual funds directly, with no commissions or hidden fees.

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.

Rs 1,824 crore net profit in FY25. 83% organic customer acquisition. It even paid Rs 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.

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 as it becomes 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/