BetterInvest launches with a pre-seed round and 3000+ requests for early access
Chennai (India), July 5: BetterInvest, has raised a pre-seed round of USD 350K from Chennai-based angel investors, including Mr. Suresh Krishn, MD of Isha Homes and President of CREDAI, Tamil Nadu, as the lead investor. Few other notable names include Mr. Manoj Poosappan – JMD of Renaatus Projects Private Limited, and renowned Tamil actor, Mr. Kathir. With this, BetterInvest will be formally opening up to over 3000 retail investors, who have requested early access.
BetterInvest is an alternative investment platform that empowers retail investors with access to asset classes that were previously accessible to only the wealthy 1%. The Chennai-based start-up is co-founded by Pradeep V S with Mr. Sedhumanikandan, who headed Marketing and Partnerships Herotalkies prior to BetterInvest, and Sriram Anax, who previously built products at Vedantu and Clickpost.
While BetterInvest has diverse asset classes, from Private Debts to Commercial Real Estate to give wide choices to retail investors, the first asset class will be “Revenue-Based Financing (RBF)” for retail investors to invest in content that is already sold to OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. BetterInvest is the first brand to offer investment in content sold to OTTs as an asset class.
“India’s awareness and maturity in terms of retail investments are seeing a significant power-shift, especially post-Covid. As more of the millennials and Gen-Z seek more informed decisions on financial growth, a significant chunk of this population is becoming retail investors, now looking for avenues beyond the standard financial asset classes to invest in. This has been a key factor in adopting alternative investment spaces such as Revenue-based financing, among the younger population,” says Pradeep V S, Co-founder & CEO, BetterInvest.
In a post-covid world of content distribution and consumption, OTTs have dominated as the go-to platform for movies to monetize. With a rich experience in this space (through Herotalkies), BetterInvest understands the opportunities presented in the content and OTT industry and brings to the table industry and domain experts, who analyze, vet, and de-risk every offering.
“BetterInvest was started with the vision of ‘reimagining investing’ for retail investors and enabling them to think beyond traditional investments. We are creating a level playing field between HNIs and a common investor. Revenue-based financing for movies sold to OTTs is the first class and we will be launching a series of asset classes over the next 12 months. The current round of fundraising will mainly be used for customer acquisition and asset class expansion,” adds Pradeep.
Revenue-based financing is an alternative growth investment model, a debt instrument, where the returns on the investment are based on the company’s revenue. The potential for alternative investment has a market potential to grow to INR 1.50 lakh crores every year which is 10% of the financial savings by Indians.
“The asset classes that a High net worth individual (HNI) invests in are very different from the asset classes that a retail investor invests in. An HNI always targets ‘Alpha returns’ whereas retail investors struggle to achieve benchmark market returns. BetterInvest is breaking the barrier and solving the problem of lower returns or risky assets for many new-age small investors. Given the expanse of the ‘small investors market’, the expertise and the energy that the BetterInvest team brings to the table, I am quite confident of their growth,” says Mr. Suresh Krishn, the lead investor in BetterInvest.
According to a recent report, Retail investors’ shares in NSE listed companies reached an all-time high of 7.42%, as of March 2022, putting them in the drivers’ seat to direct the market.
About BetterInvest:
BetterInvest is an alternative investment platform that empowers retail investors with access to asset classes that were available earlier only to the HNIs. The start-up will be expanding with a series of alternative investment asset classes that will help retail investors to diversify their investment portfolio outside of the traditional asset classes such as deposits, equity, and gold, thereby enabling them to generate alpha returns.
About the Founders:
Pradeep V S, Co-founder & CEO: Previously founded Herotalkies in 2014, a global Tamil OTT platform, before the entry of major OTT players in India. Scaled the business successfully across 70 countries and exited the same after acquisition by a leading OTT player (YuppTV) in 2018. Chartered Accountant and MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB).
Sedhumanikandan, Co-founder: Core team member of Herotalkies and spearheaded marketing, partnership, retention, and support teams. Brings distinctive foresight to the management of the firm. Strategically led political consulting firms at TN Assembly elections towards victory.
Sriram Anax, Co-founder: Ex- Vedantu. Experienced building products from scratch. Accelerated growth of a B2C product to a 100,000 user base. Previously founded Loot, a kids content app, and worked as a Product Manager in Logistics Intelligence platform – ClickPost.AI
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