Groww’s confidential IPO filing has certainly grabbed the attention of the startup ecosystem this week, particularly after its eye-catching acquisition of Fisdom earlier in the month.

Now, one of the handful of profitable new-age tech companies in India (as of FY24, at least) is heading to the bourses and it’s the first investment tech startup to make a public listing bid. As such, there’s a whole lot of expectation that Groww might be the next big IPO to emerge out of India’s startup story.

So far Groww’s story has been defined by profitability and rapid growth, the next chapter — particularly the diversification push — might throw up a challenge or two that’s perhaps more daunting than what Groww’s founders and management have dealt with thus far.

Diversification Is The Name Of The Game

The pandemic and 2020’s market conditions marked a major turning point for both Groww and the Indian equities market. It is said to be the era when consumers, sitting idle at home, became more aware of ways of investing and growing their income.

Having started as a mutual fund platform and then introducing stock trading just a few months into 2020, Groww expanded into three key areas.

• The first one was the asset management company licence it acquired through Indiabulls
• The second was the support for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), futures and options (F&O) and IPO investments
• The third is wealth management, involving family offices and high net-worth individuals (HNIs), where it has launched W by Groww

Another strategic decision was to focus on personal loans and loans against mutual funds. This was seen as a way to allow creditworthy individuals to get loans not just for personal expenses but also investing.

Groww turned profitable way back in FY21 and was valued at $3 Bn in October 2021, and today it is valued at $7 Bn after multiple years of profitability. Today, the company claims more than 1.5 Cr users across 900 cities.

By FY24, it had upstaged Zerodha to become the app with the most number of active investors and had a big share in the mutual funds market as well. Revenue scaled to........

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