InCred Capital, the wealth and asset management arm of InCred Group, has announced the acquisition of digital investment firm Orowealth in an all-cash deal.
InCred Capital will own a 71% stake in the company post regulatory approvals, it said on Monday. Financial details of the deal were, however, not disclosed.The transaction will allow all the existing investors of Orowealth fully exiting their investments worth $1.7 million.
In 2018, the Mumbai-based company had announced fundraising of $1.6 million (about ₹11 crore) in a Series A round led by US-based venture capital firm Powerhouse Ventures. Its existing investors include Sri Peddu, managing director and general partner at Powerhouse Ventures), Hiro Mashita (founder director, M&S Partners), InnerChef co-founder and founder of GSF Accelerator Rajesh Sawhney, B-Dash Ventures, Money Forward and Social Capital.
The acquisition also marks InCred’s entry in retail wealthtech business. With the acquisition, InCred will also launch InCred Money. InCred will take over Orowealth’s assets under management (AUM) of over ₹1,100 crore, while Vijay Kuppa, co-founder, Orowealth will lead InCred Money as the chief executive officer, it said in a statement.
“With the synergies from this acquisition, we aim to grow our AUM to ₹5,000 crore in the next one year,” Kuppa said.
InCred Money will develop business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) offerings using technology to integrate a network of independent financial advisors (IFA) across India and allow them to tap class-leading products and solutions for the benefit of their end customers, Kuppa said in an interaction.
Founded in 2016 by Kuppa, Nitin Agrawal and Yogesh Powar, Orowealth offers low-cost wealth management services to retail customers and financial intermediaries such as banks, brokers, and wealth managers. “We target retail investors with a net worth of ₹5 lakh to ₹5 crore facilitating access to niche, low-ticket investment opportunities, in addition to traditional investment tools like fixed deposits...We also plan to launch services allowing investments in government bonds going forward,” Kuppa added.
In terms of future objectives, the company plans on launching its own bond platform along with the current product offerings like asset leasing, invoice discounting, fractional real estate, and corporate deposits. The company also plans on running some pilots on private equity, pre-IPO products and plans on getting into broking and offering stocks, and other products as well.
“In the next decade, the democratization of investment opportunities covering the mass affluent and retail segments will be driven by digital platforms that unlock access to non-traditional assets for investors as well as their advisors. This will help to create a new market worth tens of billions in AUM,” said Bhupinder Singh, founder, and group chief executive officer of InCred Group.
In November 2022, the wealth and asset management division of InCred Financial Services Ltd., InCred Asset Management, announced the first closure of its first credit fund, InCred Credit Opportunities Fund I (ICOF I), to raise about Rs 300 crore.
Last year July also marked the completion of a strategic merger of InCred’s lending business with American private equity giant KKR to combine their retail and micro, small & medium enterprise (SME) financing portfolio.