Amazon Inc has made its first investment in India’s wealth management sector by participating in the $40 million Series C round of smallcase Technologies. The round was led by Faering Capital with the participation of Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund (ASVF) and Premji Invest.

The investment in smallcase opens a new frontier for Amazon in wealth management. The e-commerce giant has previously invested in insurance player Acko and credit provider Capital Float.

Other existing investors including Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Beenext, DSP Group, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures, HDFC Bank Group and Utpal Sheth, (CEO Rare Enterprises) also participated in the smallcase’s funding round, which takes the total capital raised to over $60 million.

With the close of the transaction, Sameer Shroff, co-founder & Managing Director at Faering Capital will be joining the board of the company.

Wealth management

smallcase has built a wealth management platform for direct indexing and model portfolios of stocks and ETFs called smallcases, where it works with capital market participants, (including brokerages, advisors, investment managers and wealth platforms) to create and distribute these simple and transparent products. The brand has orchestrated an ecosystem of over 250 businesses offering smallcases including financial institutions.

“In April this year, we launched a $250 million Amazon SMBhav Venture Fund (ASVF) to invest in early stage tech start-ups. As part of this fund, we are excited to partner with smallcase in their journey to offer innovative consumer investment products. By increasing product selection and convenience, this will provide an additional channel for consumers to participate in the equity markets,” said a spokesperson for Amazon.

30 lakh users

Since smallcase’s Series B raise in September 2020, the company’s user base is said to have doubled to over 3 million and the volumes transacted have grown 2.5 times to ₹12,500 crore.

To launch more products

The capital raised will be used to launch investment products for the retail investor and to create additional value for smallcase’s partners by growing the ecosystem and enhancing the platform and its capabilities.

“Globally, we have seen a trend of increased retail participation in equity markets and in India smallcase is enabling digital access for retail investors through their innovative products and channel partnerships,” said Sameer Shroff.

“The last two years have seen remarkable interest from Indian retail investors in the equity markets, and we are inspired to see smallcases become the primary gateway to stocks and ETFs for millions of new investors. We are focused on expanding our offerings to cement smallcase’s position as the portfolio investing layer across asset classes for the retail investor,” said Vasanth Kamath, founder & CEO at smallcase.