Tiger Global and Ratan Tata-backed digital discount broker Upstox has recorded a four-fold jump in its customer base to over 8 million from a level of 2 million at the beginning of this calendar year.

This firm’s growth in terms of its customer base has been largely fuelled by the ongoing IPO frenzy in the country and the migration of millennials to digital native trading platforms in the last two-three years.

The year 2021 is the best IPO year for the country in the last two decades with as many as 63 companies raising ₹1.18-lakh crore.

Upstox, which was set up in 2009 by Ravi Kumar, Kavitha Subramanian and Shrini Vishwanath, had recently raised Series C funding of $150-200 million in a round led by Tiger Global and had achieved the coveted status of an Unicorn, sources said.

Active traders

For Upstox, the increase in the number of active traders is largely fuelled from Tier-II and Tier-III cities with a vast majority being first time investors. The trend has only accelerated in the post pandemic period as more individuals and households have been looking for additional sources of incomes.

“2021 has been an incredible year for India’s capital markets. The Sensex and Nifty touched all-time highs with a record surge on equity participation. Digital brokerages supported by their tech driven business model have played a pivotal role in driving this surge, as is seen in our growth. At Upstox, from a customer base of 2 million in January 2021, we are now ending the year with over 8 million customers,” Ravi Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Upstox, said.

Most of the Upstox customers are millennials — the average age of more than 75 per cent of the company’s customers is less than 35 years.

It maybe recalled that Upstox, backed by its mobile trading platform, achieved the 1-million customer mark in June 2020 and added the next 1 million in less than five months.

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