This app instructing teenagers the methods of funding is backed by Zerodha’s Kamath

Husein wished to know extra as he had by no means invested earlier than. Driven by curiosity, he looked for apps on his smartphone, however most apps he got here throughout had been these of brokerages, meant for adults.

When he got here throughout ZuPay, which calls itself “India’s premier investing and studying app for youngsters” on its app page, Husein got interested. he downloaded the app.

“Initially, I was still worried as I had never heard of this app and thought this might be some kind of scam. When their team called me, I realized it was not a scam, but a genuine platform,” he remembers.

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Husein has already put his first ₹100 within the inventory markets (investing in Yes Bank and Welspun Corp), however he’s nonetheless making an attempt to know the fundamentals of investing on ZuPay, and hopes to be better-informed by the point he attracts his first earnings.

ZuPay is slowly attracting extra youngsters like Husein, who need to know extra about investing. “We have a function that permits youngsters to even make investments utilizing their mother and father’ demat account, after they approve the commerce, however we do not need to be an investing app. We are extra targeted on being a studying app for youngsters,” says Anubhav Mishra, co-founder of ZuPay. Currently, ZuPay has 15,000 teen customers.

The app obtained the backing of Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath’s enterprise capital agency Rainmatter at a really early stage. The low cost dealer has backed initiatives up to now specializing in monetary literacy like Varsity at Zerodha and Finshots (one other Rainmatter funding).

Rainmatter obtained concerned within the final fund-raising spherical of ZuPay, which was led by Prime Venture Partners, a Bengaluru-based enterprise capital agency. In its first fund elevating spherical, ZuPay had raised round ₹70,000,00 from 100X.VC, Let’sVenture and a number of angel buyers.

Problem assertion

Bengaluru-based graduates from Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai — Anubhav Mishra (25) and Arpit Jain (23) — had been desirous about their subsequent enterprise. Although from completely different streams (Mishra – chemical engineering; Jain – pc science), that they had labored on a number of ventures and tasks collectively at VIT, even collaborating in competitions collectively that targeted on improvements.

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Anubhav Mishra, 25, co-founder of ZuPay, is a chemical engineering graduate from Vellore Institute of Technology. He focuses on pondering product design and use circumstances.

Their final enterprise was an AI and algorithm-based platform that would summarize court docket judgements by contextual studying, but it surely didn’t take off commercially.

This was someday round final 12 months when covid-19 was at its peak. An sudden consequence of lockdowns was the rising recognition of inventory markets.

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Arpit Jain, 23, co-founder of ZuPay, is a pc science graduate from Vellore Institute of Technology. He focuses on constructing merchandise and apps.

Around this time, US-based Fidelity which affords all the pieces from brokerage, mutual funds, to retirement plans and wealth administration, had launched a commission-free brokerage account for American youngsters. It was obtainable for teenagers, whose mother and father or guardians had been already Fidelity clients and will monitor this account.

Mishra and Jain picked up on the development, and came upon that there was a good bigger hole when it got here to monetary literacy amongst teenagers in India.

Interactions with firms in monetary sector cemented this perception. They realized lack of expertise was as a result of platforms didn’t communicate within the language of teenagers.

At the identical time, they realized that Gen-Z was getting closely uncovered and influenced by monetary influencers. Celeb endorsements of cryptocurrencies as an funding different had added to their recognition.

“We realized that Gen-Z was nice when it got here to cost evaluating for selecting merchandise, cash administration. At the identical time, they had been getting uncovered to investing concepts on social media. Every third or fourth put up on Instagram is expounded to finance, however there isn’t a platform to show teenagers the very primary ideas of investing,” said Mishra.

That’s when Jain and Mishra thought of creating an app, which not only uncomplicates investing for teens, but also tries to make it cool, or ‘lit!’ in the Gen-Z lingo. To be sure, this was not their first brush with financial world. They had earlier built FinLit, a financial literacy platform and sold it to Fullerton India Credit Company.

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‘Meme’ business

ZuPay uses a combination of gamification, Instagram-esque stories, tasks, quizzes and live sessions to deliver content to teens. These tasks take the teen through a learning journey, which begins from the ‘Birth of Money’ chapter.

These tasks involve reading the education content on ZuPay, which is short and simple and uses examples that teens can relate to. The content material also liberally uses images, GIFs and memes to hold the attention of the teen reader.

Five-seven tasks make up a module, which is followed by a live session, a quiz and then a passing certificate.

There are quick-to-read flipcards as well that talk about difference between long-term goals and short-term, wants and needs, savings account, inflation and market volatility, among other things. These flipcards are followed by short quizes.

Live investing

Teenagers can experience live stocks markets on ZuPay in two ways. One is by joining its stock market league ‘Stock Wars’, where they can buy and sell shares of companies, but all with virtual money. ZuPay plans to offer gift vouchers to winners.

Teens can also buy an actual share, but only with the consent of their parent. If a teen wants to buy a share, he first needs to invite parent to come onto the app and link a demat account. When the teen places a buy order for a stock, a request is sent to the parent, who can then decide whether or not to buy the stock for their teen.

Food delivery company Zomato is the most popular stock on ZuPay, as just like most retail investors, teens are also attracted towards companies whose services and products they consume.

ZuPay has also integrated a ‘brands’ drop-down on each of the company’s stock page, which showcases brand names of the products offered by the company. This is more helpful for teens when they come across an FMCG company.

Teen talks

Living in the outskirts of Mumbai in Nala Sopara, Shreyansh Tiwari, 16, seems to be a trading whiz kid. He topped the ‘Stock Wars’ league on ZuPay, making ₹6 lakh in one day with ₹25,000 of virtual money.

₹2 lakh in his first year of trading in stocks. ” title=”Shreyansh Tiwari, 16, who lives in the outskirts of Mumbai, made ₹2 lakh in his first year of trading in stocks. “>

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Shreyansh Tiwari, 16, who lives within the outskirts of Mumbai, made ₹2 lakh in his first 12 months of buying and selling in shares.

Stock markets will not be new for Tiwari. He says as a result of monetary disaster at dwelling, he began buying and selling in inventory markets two years again, and even made ₹2 lakh in his first 12 months, which he used to purchase a laptop computer to assist together with his schooling and even pay his school charges.

Tiwari doesn’t do day buying and selling on shares, however does swing buying and selling (i.e. taking positions on shares to make beneficial properties over few days or few weeks), based mostly on technical chart indicators and information stream of firms.

Tiwari says if he had recognized about ZuPay earlier, he may have presumably earned extra from inventory markets. “Through the ZuPay app, one can learn to choose shares, what are large-caps, mid-caps and small-caps and the way freshmen can make investments their first ₹100 in inventory markets. It is secure and safe as it’s linked along with your dad or mum’s account. I feel it’s a revolutionary app as teaches the very fundamentals of investing. I’ve even referred the app to my buddies,” he says.

Shivam Mishra, 16, who lives in Chhattisgarh, says he has learnt the concept of inflation through the app. “I understand today that inflation in India is about 7.3%. If you invest in a bank savings account, which fetches you 4% interest-rate or bank fixed deposits that offer you 5%-6%, the value of your money is going down. When you invest in stock markets, the value of your money can increase, but it can also decrease significantly,” he says.

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Shivam Mishra, 16, who lives in Chhattisgarh, learnt on ZuPay the affect of inflation on returns.

Mishra provides that he now very properly understands what’s Nifty and Sensex – the 2 indices that characterize the highest firms within the inventory markets. He has additionally learnt how banking business works. “Banks use the cash we deposit with them to provide loans to debtors, and the curiosity they earn on that mortgage, they provide a share of that to us; the account holders and depositors,” he summarizes.

He has also learnt what are exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Saurabh Arora, 45, who works in the capital market industry, says the ZuPay app has helped him to have lot of conversations with his 16-year-old teenage son around investing. “Just like my father helped me to understand the importance of investing, I want to do the same with my son, as this is something that would help him in his future. When he showed me this app, I looked into it and got him enrolled into a couple of courses, which he liked and did well,” Arora says.

“This has pushed him to assume and even ask me inquiries to know extra. The different day, he requested me about debt. I defined him debt is one thing the place should you want cash, banks offer you that cash and cost rate of interest on that. As a follow-up, he requested me, then what’s FD. Then I instructed him about financial institution FDs, after which I used that chain of dialog to speak to him about financial institution FDs vs debt mutual funds and the way mutual funds are completely different from shares. He additionally is aware of what ETFs are, which even standard buyers do not about although ETFs at the moment are fairly-sized,” he adds.

Monika Mantri, mother of a 15-year-old, says her daughter browses through the ZuPay app in her spare time. She has learnt a few basic things about banking, debit, credit, stock markets, and is now insisting that her mother helps her open a bank account for her.

ZuPay’s future plans

Mishra says ZuPay doesn’t want to become an investing app, but a learning app and even a family fintech app later in its journey. “When you link parents with the children’s learning and investing journey, it can become a fintech app for the entire family, and a serious place. So, on the parents’ side, more investment products can be pitched, to do with children’s education, etc. Even insurance can be an offering,” he says.

“We can do that at a later stage when now we have 500,000-600,000 and even one million customers on our app. We may additionally collaborate with monetary specialists to come back on our platform and supply particular studying modules. These modules will be priced,” he says.

According to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, there are 253 million adolescents in India in the age-group of 10-19 years. Several of these youngsters would be joining the workforce soon and getting their first salary.

“There is elevated consciousness amongst youngsters, however they typically look to make fast beneficial properties. If they strategy investing in a disciplined method, as soon as they begin incomes, it may well assist them expertise the magic of compounding,” says Deepak Chhabria, chief govt officer and director, Axiom Financial Services.

Giving nudges and pushes to youngsters at the moment on significance of investing and investing in the best method – protecting in thoughts inflation, long-term, short-term objectives, prioritizing wants over needs, market volatility – can push them to start out planning for his or her future objectives proper after they get their first wage or paycheck.

Elsewhere in Mint

In Opinion, Vivek Kaul tells why our love of presidency jobs is dangerous for the financial system. Pranjul Bhandari suggests a two-pronged technique for India’s exterior balances. Andy Mukherjee writes on what Reliance will promote subsequent to somebody who’s already guzzling knowledge. Long Story reveals how a China-linked agency ran a maze of fraud corporations.

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