New Investment Keyholes
Wealthdesk, founded by Ujjwal Jain, is a platform that helps you discover and invest in the country’s best advisors/research-driven portfolios which were previously inaccessible. Jain started Wealthdesk in 2014. An engineer by training, Jain joined a hedge fund straight after completing his engineering degree.
He then moved to Mumbai. “It’s here that I got exposed to the stock market,” recalls Jain. He points out a big gap between retail participation in global markets versus the Indian markets.
Exploring Options: It was this gap that Jain saw as an opportunity and started exploring options in the startup space.
His stint with MSCI Inc., an American company headquartered in New York, also helped him as it provided the required exposure to how hedge funds run globally in a technology-led environment and how Index led ETF business runs in a technology environment. Both these experiences combined to produce and shape what Wealthdesk is today, he says. So what exactly does Wealthdesk offer? It invites consumers to invest in the stock market with an expert.
“It lets experts guide you on stock and ETF investments through premium WealthBasket portfolios. WealthBasket is a portfolio of equities or ETFs that help you build low-cost, diversified, long term as well as short term portfolios. Each Wealthbasket portfolio reflects an investment strategy, theme or an idea with underlying stocks, ETFs accordingly weighted following a rigorous research process,” explains Jain.
Today, with more Indians opening broking accounts, engaging in ETF and investing in the stock market, Jain has created a technology platform that sits on top of broking which helps the investor get the right curated portfolio.
“On the retail front, the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India, has created investment advisory license, using which top fund advisors can come on our platform. Also, they can create portfolios. On the consumer side, we will integrate with every broker in the country,” Jain says spelling out some of this near term goals.
Financial Assets: Wealthdesk has progressed from just a transactional business model to a wealth advisory and wealth management led business model. Given that Wealthdesk is a SaaS led business, scaling up this way became easier and sustainable, he adds.
And to further help the business, there is a changing financial landscape today where people are moving investments away from traditional and fixed deposits to financial assets. And equity investments are becoming mainstream in such investments.
Simultaneously, broking as an industry is also expanding. Combining these two factors and presenting the end products to the consumer is what Wealthdesk presents as a final product to the consumer. It is in the form of premium affordable portfolios.
Jain is confident that all these factors will keep the broking accounts active in the long run.
“Post the Covid era, people have got serious about their secondary source of income. They are realising that they need to put their savings in the correct investment solutions,” he adds.
And this factor alone would continue to fuel the growth of platforms like Wealthdesk because younger investors are savvy enough to diversify their source of income.
