Early investors Peak XV, YC set for big gains as Groww lists; founders’ stake valued at nearly Rs 20,000 crore

Early backers and promoters of Billionbrains Garage Ventures, the parent company of Groww, are set to make significant gains from the Bengaluru-based investment platform going public.

The four cofounders — Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh — together hold a 26.1% stake in the company, according to its red herring prospectus (RHP). Based on the current trading price, the holding of the cofounders is valued at nearly Rs 20,000 crore.

Chief executive Keshre, who owns an 8.97% stake, is expected to see his holding valued at more than Rs 6,700 crore after the IPO. Chief operating officer Jain’s 6.6% stake will be worth nearly Rs 5,000 crore. Singh’s holdings will be worth around Rs 4,700 crore, while Bansal will have shares valued at more than Rs 3,400 crore.


Also Read: Groww’s 10-year journey to an IPO: From mutual fund seller to stock market leader

Groww shares ended trading at Rs 130.9, up 31% over the issue price, which gives it a current market capitalisation of around Rs 80,000 crore, well higher than the valuation during the book building process.

The founders, tagged as promoters, are not selling any shares through the IPO, as they had opted out of the offer for sale (OFS) process. This brought the OFS size down to 557.2 million shares from the 574.19 million shares mentioned in the draft RHP filed last month.

Peak XV Partners, the company’s largest shareholder currently, is left with 16.9% stake in the fintech firm after the IPO, valued at Rs 12,675 crore. Y Combinator, another early backer, which had a stake of around 12% pre-IPO, has seen its shareholding come down to 10.1%, while Tiger Global, which reduced its OFS portion to 51.8 million shares from 64.8 million earlier, is left with a 5.1% stake in Groww. Ribbit Capital, another major shareholder in Groww, is left with a 6.2% stake post IPO.

Also Read: Groww has fully returned at least two US funds; among best IRRs of the decade for an Indian startup: early investor Anu Hariharan

In an interview with ET, Keshre said: “We make so much money, we could keep it all. But that’s not how you build a 100-year-old company. We want to be accountable to the public just like all global financial services companies are.”

Founded in 2016, Groww began as a mutual fund investment platform and has since become India’s largest online stockbroking platform in terms of the number of active NSE clients.

The company reported Rs 904.3 crore in operating revenue for the June quarter, down from Rs 1,000.7 crore a year earlier.

Also Read: Groww IPO: We make so much money, we could keep it all — but that’s not how you build a 100-year-old company: CEO Lalit Keshre