Journey
Poor financial education is a major problem in society and Kredent InfoEdge was the earlier ones to realize this. Since 2008, the organization has been focused on training retail investors on various aspects of financial management. The offline center through various modules has trained over 10,000 participants to date.
Elearnmarkets.com the online financial learning venture was launched in 2014 for the purpose of taking financial education to all over the country. As on date, there are over 150,000 learners from over 200 cities in India taking over 100 finance learning modules, some certified by NSE Academy, MCX, NCDEX, etc.
As part of providing full financial freedom to retail investors and helping them to become less dependent on intermediaries, Kredent InfoEdge is also developing tools which would help everyone to become a do-it-yourself market participant. One of the tools launched in May 2016 is STOCK EDGE app. As on date, the app has over 1 MILLION downloads with an active user base of 200,000 and rating of 4.7, highest rated finance app in this category in India. StockEdge is a freemium app with almost 1 BILLION data point in its database and has recently introduced a premium plan with value-added features like a thematic watchlist, portfolio of ACE investors and ready strategies. Also launched the StockEdge Club, a community of stock market investors to focus on learning and networking.
What is so Unique about this concept?
Kredent InfoEdge is a niche player concentrating on the finance sector, which intends to meet lifetime needs of learning finance, tracking financial markets, earning & managing money. No other existing platform combines all the requirements of a learner & practitioner of finance in such a compact and simple manner. Kredent InfoEdge works with a single objective of Simplifying Finance for All.
The industry is fragmented with various people doing various work independently. We are trying to work on an integrated model with the right knowledge as the core requirement of the user. For example, the financial market training industry is very fragmented having various individual trainers. Elearnmarkets is a platform which brings together learners and subject matter expert related to finance. Similarly, StockEdge gives investors and traders access to refined data of 6000+ companies. It also provides readymade scans, watchlists, portfolio of ace investors and much more.
Would you like to discuss numbers?
First few years, the focus was more oriented towards social responsibility. However, since 2014, there was a shift in vision as well as orientation as adapted technology for the purpose of reaching to a larger audience with cutting edge products. In FY 2018-19, Kredent InfoEdge generated revenue of Rs.5.5 crore.
Our current revenue comes from offering online financial training through Elearnmarkets and through the subscription of data analytics services through our StockEdge app. We are also developing further tools which will add transaction revenue in the future.
Who is your Target Group and How will this concept effect them?
Our target audience is first timers in financial management. The first-timers could be youngsters (around 3.5 crores students are pursuing graduation and above qualifications in India), job seekers, young earners as well as retiree population of India. Basically, anyone who is interested in getting into formal financial instruments is our best TG as they need proper knowledge and mentorship which is currently grossly lacking in the industry.
Our integrated solution will help individuals to become independent in their decision making.
What is the potential of growth?
There are 75 crore unique bank account holders in India. Out of which ONLY 2 crores are invested in mutual fund and LESS THAN 1 crore invests in the direct equity market. Only 1.5% of India’s population is investing in non-banking financial products. This is leading to poor wealth creation and distribution. The core reason behind such a lag is poor financial literacy, lack of access to data and biased analytics from various intermediaries. We believe we can become a major catalyst to the change and help better financial inclusion in India.
Where did the initial capital for the innovation come? What returns does it have?
Seed Capital was invested by a financial service firm based out of Kolkata. Later a pre-series A was concluded in 2018 by with investments from market stewards like Shri Ramesh Damani, Shri Ajay Sharma and Shri Dinesh Agarwal, owner of indiamart.com
Currently, the business is in the investment stage.
What is the strength of the organization and the scale of operations?
Kredent InfoEdge has 100+ employee who is our biggest strength. Apart from we have over 500,000 registered userbases combining all products.
Give us a brief background of what you were doing before starting the venture.
After working in Mumbai at JM Financials, Vivek joined his family business of proprietary trading and expanded it to 300 people set up. Armed with major in finance from IIM Indore and a passion to give back to society he started the financial market education wing in the name of Kredent Academy in the year 2008. The objective was also to groom the right talent for trading and/or research and then add them in the trading desk. He is known in the industry as one of the thought leaders and is part of various committees of the exchanges.
Vineet Patawari, a pass out of IIM Indore and a Chartered Accountant, had an inspiration for building internet-based scalable businesses. He shunned the campus job offer and started his eLearning venture into MBA entrance exam preparatory. He later joined hands with Vivek to expand in the financial education space.
Vinay Pagaria, Chartered Account by qualification but a hard-core techie by profession, has had 15 years of experience in software development in FinTech domain. His passion for product development combined with Vivek’s passion of stock market let to the birth of StockEdge
Future plans
We want to become an integrated solution provider for individual investors in India in the domain of personal financial management. We started with knowledge offerings because it is the core DNA of our organization. Through knowledge, we are helping the users to connect with us and consume our various form of content like video, analysis tool, learning tool, etc.
We would like to nurture the large population of our country by adapting to localize content and make them capable of taking their financial decision independently. We also intend to offer the final leg of the engagement with our users, by offering them transaction services in all assets and liability products related to an individual.
We have kept a target of connecting with 1 crore Indians by 2020.
How do you look to allocate the funds?
Recently we have received Pre-Series A funding lead by renowned stock market investor Mr. Ramesh Damani and others. We’re looking to raise Series A round within the year 2019. The funds will be used to further upgrade our existing products (Elearnmarkets and StockEdge) and to develop a tech-based platform for personal financial management. Other than product development and upgradation, the funds will be utilized for building a marketing chest.
What challenges did you face when you were starting out?
In India, everyone is an expert, especially when it comes to managing money. The general perception is that people are ready to lose money by taking wrong decisions and not invest in own learning and development. This mindset is gradually changing as traditional methods of financial management is also evolving. Especially the young population, millennials are changing the business landscape across industries. We believe due to outthrust on knowledge; we will be a major beneficiary in the ecosystem.
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