Centricity wealthtech Raises $4 Million in Maiden Funding Round at $20 Million Valuation

Centricity wealthtech a B2B2C wealthtech platform for independent investment professionals, Single Family offices (SFO) and corporate treasuries have raised $4 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Burman family office (Chowdry associates -Saket Burman, MB Finmart Pvt. Ltd -Mohit Burman & Pradip Burman) Shantanu Agarwal (LNJ Bhilwara group) and Arun Jain (Intellect design arena/Founder-Polaris software Labs). Given that this is an angel round, the size of capital raised is substantial.

Established in early 2022 by former Senior Private Bankers, Centricity aims to build a comprehensive tech solution for a largely unorganized IFA community and former private wealth professionals who wish to be wealth management solopreneurs. Centricity offers plug and play solutions for seamless “employee to entrepreneur” (E2E) transitions.

“Centricity endeavors to build a full stack open-source financial services platform for Independent financial advisors (IFA’s), External asset managers (EAM’s) & Single-family offices (SFO’s) to manage investment portfolios efficiently. In the first phase we have conceptualized and developed a comprehensive invest-tech platform which features a full spectrum investment product marketplace, digital transactional capabilities and deep portfolio reporting & monitoring capability. In the second phase we wish to integrate life & non-life insurance products as well as mortgages. The roadmap for the next 24 months includes developing in-house asset management capabilities and a capital market NBFC .Our long-term vision is to establish Centricity as  ‘India’s largest B2B2C financial distribution brand’ with technology being at the core of a “one stop financial product shop for wealth managers and end investors. Such a herculean initiative wouldn’t have be possible without an immensely talented team of founding partners viz. Aditya Shankar, Gaurav Tiwari, Pushpendra Singh, Manish Sharma, Mandeep Randhawa, Ishkaran Chhabra, Sachin Jasuja, Nikhil Golatkar and Kunal Shrivastav, who are spearheading different facets of the business”, says Manu Awasthy- founder, Centricity wealthtech.

The company plans to use the funds to strengthen teams across technology, investment product and sales functions as well as increasing brand awareness. It plans to onboard 1000-1500 IFAs in the next 24 months with a combined transaction value of at least $1 billion.

Other angel investors in this round includes Devesh Sachdev (Fusion Microfinance), Rajesh Razdan (Devtron Labs), Ankush Nijhawan (TBO.com), Purrshottam Bhaggeria (Filatex group), Abhay Agarwal (Burman family office) & Pravin Jain/Navin Jain (Supercircle family office).

"Wealth management is an exciting and competitive space globally and in India. It is encouraging to see that experienced professionals from the private wealth management ecosystem have identified value gaps on the technology front and are building a solution around it. The Key here is to understand existing propositions and pain points for both relationship managers as well as clients and then work with industry specific technology teams to innovate", said Saket Burman.

As per design thinking evangelist Arun Jain, “Traditional mutual fund distributors (MFD’s) have loyal customers but low wallet shares as access to a spectrum of products is limited .The new age banker turned IFA (employee to entrepreneur or E to E) not only seeks access to investment products but also a technology platform that helps him compete with large wealth management institutions. Such a platform helps the IFA automate client journeys such as onboarding, KYC, risk profiling, transaction, reporting and review thereby reducing overhead costs of manpower and infrastructure. Lower costs translate to better earnings potential”.

“The invest-tech space has witnessed several interesting developments over the past few years, but the HNI segment across the country has not been effectively served digitally. I see digitization as a big opportunity, where the advisor is armed with the best tech-enabled solutions to serve their clients effectively, especially in tier 2 & 3 cities”, said Shantanu Agarwal”.

“For an independent financial advisor or an investment professional looking to establish an independent practice, in a tier 1 or tier 2 city, a robust tech enabled platform can plug value gaps and help constructing investment portfolios and proposals faster, accessing a comprehensive digital investment product marketplace and reporting client portfolios better”, said  Abhay Agarwal.