Social Investment Startup StockGro Raises $5 Mn In Pre-Series A Round The company will use the funding in strengthening its user base, hiring tech talent, and building new features

Social investment startup StockGro informed on Wednesday to have raised $5 million in a pre-Series A round of funding. The round was led by Roots Ventures and Velo Partners.

The company will use the funding to grow its user base, hire tech talent and build new features.

StockGro was founded in January 2020 by Ajay Lakhotia, a former venture capitalist, with an aim to help people learn and participate in stock markets. StockGro is Asia's first social investment platform with a gamified virtual interface that enables users to discover trading strategies, compete and interact with some of the country's best minds. With more than 1 million user bases, StockGro has over 80 per cent month-on-month retention, the company claims.

"Our culture, our education system teaches us how to save money but no one teaches us how to invest money. At StockGro we are on a mission to make Millennials investment-ready. With over 1 million active users on the platform within 9 months of launch, StockGro has become the primary social investment platform for millennials. Global investors aligned to our vision have come on board to support us in democratizing investments for the next generation," stated Ajay Lakhotia, founder, StockGro.

The platform allows ordinary individuals to initiate their investment journey without taking any risk and get rewarded for building the best investment portfolios. Best performing traders & investors win award money gaining followers and become popular socializing their investment strategies and thesis.

"StockGro is gamifying stock investing and making it more social. These are compelling elements in one platform providing an educational interface to aspiring investors and traders, tremendous exchange of ideas and information amongst participants and on the whole democratizing investing and trading. We look forward to working with Ajay and the team in its growth journey," said Japan Vyas, managing partner, Roots Ventures.

StockGro now has leading fund managers, F&O traders, and algo traders driving their social groups, helping users learn various trading strategies and test their thesis on StockGro platform.

"Encouraging education, and engagement with the younger generation around investing in the stock market is essential. With less than 10 per cent of millennials actively investing in Stock Markets, StockGro is standing at the junction of growing the TAM of active investors. StockGro founder Ajay brings the right experience, knowledge, network, and passion to unlock this multibillion-dollar potential market," Andrew Reader, director, Velo Partners.

In last nine months, StockGro has become the primary platform across the 105-B Schools and colleges to learn trading and investment. Recently, StockGro has partnered with NIRC, the Northern India Regional Council of ICAI to launch exclusive StockGro leagues for CA Students and professionals. The partnership was aimed at helping over 6 lakh students and 1 lakh professionals learn the nuances of the Stock market.

Earlier in December 2020, StockGro raised around $1 million in an angel round of funding from Unicorn Founders – Kunal Shah of Cred, Vivekananda Hallekere of Bounce, Rahul Garg of Moglix, Ramakant Sharma of Livspace, and prominent Fund Managers like Varun Laul of Investcorp, Ashish Sharma of Innoven Capital, Rohit Sood of Bertelsmann, Ankit Agarwal of Alteria Capital, Tej Kapoor of Fosun, Karthik Bhat of Ubiquity and Family Offices including Creed Capital, Luminaire Capital, and Mark V Capital. Falcon Edge Partners are also among the prominent investors in StockGro.