Fintech stock trading platform MarketWolf said on Tuesday that it has raised $10 million (approx. 79 crore) as part of its Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Jungle Ventures and Dream Capital, the corporate venture capital and acquisition arm of Dream Sports.
9 existing and other investors participated in the funding round, including Unicorn, Iced, Crescent and Riverwalk, MarketWolf said in a statement.
MarketWolf is powered by FnO India Securities Pvt. Ltd. will use the new capital to strengthen its product line and hire product, marketing and engineering teams, it added.
Founded in 2017 by Vishesh Dhingra (CEO) and Thomas Joseph (CRO), MarketWolf is a stock trading app targeted at first time investors. It strives to make the stock trading experience jargon free and easy. The startup says that it only charges brokerage fees on profitable trades which allows users to manage risks and make better trading decisions in any market condition. The startup has raised $17.4 million since its inception.
Vishesh Dhingra, Founder and CEO, MarketWolf, said the app “is fast becoming a stock trading platform for the mobile gaming generation, who love to explore new and more immersive ways of doing things.”
Jungle Ventures Principal Arpit Berry said retail participation in the stock market in India remains extremely low at 3-5% and MarketWolf can help change that.
“The company has already demonstrated tremendous viscosity and virginity with its consumers and we are excited to be part of their next phase of growth,” Berry said.
Earlier in May, Jungle Ventures marked the final closing of its fourth Southeast Asia and India-focused venture capital (VC) fund at $600 million, which exceeded its initial target fund of $350 million. It counts Indian startup unicorns like Moglix and Livspace as its investment companies.
Dev Bajaj, who leads Dream Capital as Chief Strategy Officer, Dream Sports, said there will be disruptive simplification in business-to-consumer (B2C) and MarketWolf is leading this effort in fintech.
Dream Capital aims to place at least 15 stakes in the initial phase and deploy a significant portion of the current corpus over the next 12-24 months, as stated in August last year. Dream Capital’s investments include e-sports platform Sostronk and sports footwear and equipment brand Elever. It also led to the acquisition of video game developer Rolocule, which has been rebranded as DreamGameStudios.
In April, Dream Capital led a $120 million Series A funding round in cricket non-fungible token (NFT) platform Rario in its biggest deal ever.