Over the last decade of investing in India, we have contemplated investing in wealth management several times, but always held back given our read of the market being a slow one to scale. “People don’t pay for advisory at scale”, “it’s a push product, not pull”, “what is the real differentiation over time?”. 2020-21 changed this. The post Covid era saw an unprecedented equity bull run, and the rise and rise of financial influencers that led to a substantial step jump in investor sophistication. More and more people actively started asking “how do I manage my money better?”. There was a hunger for more – more assets to diversify their savings in, access to higher alpha, and more simplicity and transparency when it came to financial instruments vs the opacity they had been used to in their previous dealings with banks and local financial advisors.
When we saw these behaviour changes in conjunction with the rapid increase in new wealth, and more and more old money coming into the advisory umbrella, we knew we were at the cusp of something special. The demand was finally coming around and the existing solutions were clearly lacking on trust, access and transparency. As the category came alive, it was no surprise that both small and large companies in this space saw massive growth. Yet when we zoomed out, it was obvious that India is in very very early days of its financialisation and there’s enormous headroom for growth when it comes to money management across retail and UHNIs. Household financial assets are expected to grow from ~$2T to ~$5T and the opportunity for a technology-led platform to enable and aid this transformation is massive.
We first met Manu and Aditya from Centricity in February 2023, and when we reconnected a year later, we were blown away by the quality of their execution, the strength of their model, and the customer centricity and long term orientation that drove a lot of their decisions. As we spent more time with them over the following weeks, it became clear that Centricity had a unique proposition for their multiple stakeholders: the people trusting their advice on their wealth, the IFAs who worked with them across the length and breadth of the country, the family offices who experienced a whole new level of insight on their capital allocation. Their One Digital arm works with IFAs across India, opening up access and education on new asset classes for them, in order to reach the mass affluent beyond the top 3 cities. Through Invictus, they directly service the UHNI class that is hungry for more transparency and alignment with their wealth advisors. Balancing both arms together helps them unlock assets previously unavailable to the mass affluent, as well as inform their UHNI investment guidance with the green shoots of change they observe through the length and breadth of the country.
As a team, Centricity has the right combination of domain expertise built through decades of experience, and the hunger and drive to push the industry to new heights and build India’s largest financial product distribution company. It’s my absolute pleasure to announce our investment in the company and our commitment to back the company to reach its full potential. Manu, Aditya, Gaurav, Manish, Pushpendra – it’s been such a joy to work with you all over the last few weeks, and look forward to a long and impactful partnership.
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