Mumbai: Social investment startup StockGro has raised $32 million led by marquee global investors such as Bitkraft Ventures, General Catalyst, and Lightricks co-founder Itai Tsiddon.

Existing investors including Roots Ventures, and Creed Capital Asia also participated in the round. The round is a mix of primary and secondary funding, where early backers have exited with manifold returns, the company said. A syndicate of angel investors including the founders of Base 10 Capital, Junglee Games founder Ankush Gera, and Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain also participated in this round.

StockGro will use the proceeds to introduce new products and aggressively ramp up hiring across functions, it said in a statement.

In August last year, the company raised $5 million in a pre-Series A funding round, led by Roots Ventures and Velo Partners. In December 2020, StockGro raised around $1 million in an angel round from a clutch of investors.

Founded in January 2020 by former venture capitalist Ajay Lakhotia, StockGro provides an interactive virtual interface that enables users to learn about and participate in stock markets. StockGro has doubled its user base to 10 million as of January 2022.

The company is the region’s first social investment platform with a gamified virtual interface that enables users to discover trading strategies, compete and interact with others.

It now has leading fund managers, futures and options traders, and algo traders driving its social groups, helping users learn various trading strategies and test their thesis on the StockGro platform.

“Having set up a solid foundation, our aim is to build a disciplined culture of trading in India and help the digital generation of today to invest in an informed and learned manner,” Lakhotia, who is also its chief executive, said.

The democratisation of finance and investment is an important global theme that is re-defining the culture and values of younger generations. In India, less than 2% of the population currently invests in the stock market, according to Bitkraft Ventures.

“Gamification and competitions not only engage new and aspiring investors, but also drive superior educational outcomes with a play and learn product. StockGro has a unique opportunity to facilitate the transition of wealth into new asset classes, not just with stocks but also with its expansion into crypto and other assets,” it added.

StockGro empowers investors through a fun and interactive product, General Catalysts said in a statement. “We are looking forward to seeing team StockGro scale their user base with the funds from this round in order to achieve their compelling vision,” it added.

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