She lives in India and is based in Singapore MarketWolf It has plans to offer stock trading to first-time investors in more markets. The platform announced today that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Singaporean venture capital firm Jungle Ventures and Mumbai-based Dream Capital. Returning investors 9Unicorns, iSeed, Crescent and Riverwalk also participated.
This brings MarketWolf’s total to $17.4 million since its inception in 2017 (launched in India in 2020). The new funding will be used to build a product portfolio and staff for the product, marketing and engineering teams.
MarketWolf wants to make trading available for the first time with low minimum investment amounts and a risk management system, as well as investment training and learning modules. They can invest in options, futures, ETFs, and stocks, starting at $5. Most of its users are in the age group of 18 to 35 years.
MarketWolf’s risk management features include setting mandatory risk and reward levels, listing only liquid instruments, blocking the sale of options to avoid unlimited risk and its own practice and learning module.
MarketWolf, founded by Vishesh Dingra and Thomas Joseph, says it has seen more than 1.5 million app downloads in India over the past 18 months and that the number of trading accounts and active retail clients has grown 10 times a year. It was listed among the top 15 brokers in terms of trading by the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) in 2021.
Prior to co-founding MarketWolf, Dingra worked at Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital, where he built quantitative models and strategies for algorithmic trading in the capital markets.
He told TechCrunch that he and Joseph wanted to launch an investment app because “we’ve seen that the current products focus on long-term investing only, and short-term trading was overlooked. Thomas and I worked in trading desks at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, etc., and we realized That there could be an easier, more participatory way of trading and risk management available to people globally.”
The startup is among a number of Southeast Asian-based investment apps that have raised (and continue to raise) funding. Over the past month, PINA wealth management platform, Indonesian trading app crypo Pintu and Vietnamese Anfin, also for first-time investors, have raised venture capital.
Dingra said MarketWolf stands out from other investing apps with its playful interface (many of its users come from mobile gaming communities) and a trading-first approach.
“Most market brokers are investment products first, while MarketWolf is a trading product first that creates a new segment of the market — people who can trade well in all market conditions, bullish, bearish, flat or volatile,” he said.
In a prepared statement, Jungle Ventures President Arpit Beri said: “Retail participation in India’s stock market remains very low at around 3-5% and we believe MarketWolf has the right product, as well as the right team and experience to penetrate this market.”
