In this interview Gaurav Rastogi, CEO, Kuvera.in is talking about Kuvera, the idea of investment and options available for this.
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#GuaravRastogi #Money #OutlookMoney #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
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00:00 Hello and welcome you're watching Outlook Money and we are back with a yet another episode of Outlook Money interview
00:05 But this time we are having with us is not a politician is not an actor and is not an economist
00:12 So today we are joined in by Mr. Gaurav Rastogi who is a CEO of Kovera app, which is India's fastest growing
00:19 Financially advisory platform online platform. So we will be talking about investment. You will be talking about a lot of other things with him
00:27 So let's start off. Thanks Rajat for having me here. Yeah, let's start. Thank you Gaurav for joining us and talking to us
00:33 My first question is can you take us back how your idea popped up in your head to launch Kovera and how your journey has
00:39 Been so far within last three and a half years
00:42 Right. So I come from an investing background, right?
00:46 So before I started Kovera, I used to be a portfolio manager with Morgan Stanley. So I managed a long short portfolio
00:53 And one of my co-founders Neelab, he also comes from an finance background. He was an investment banker with Axis Bank
01:00 So we have seen some of the developments in the investment space very closely right the rise of what you call robo advisory globally
01:08 The tailwinds that SEBI is providing by introducing direct plans first of all and then by kind of capping the commission that can be paid
01:15 on regular plans
01:17 So there was this we felt that there was this need in India
01:22 Where an individual could go on a platform
01:24 Get good advice with good quality advice that is suited for their goals for the long-term needs
01:30 Without any conflict of interest
01:33 So without them fearing that hey, are they actually recommending the right funds for me or there is something in it for them
01:40 So for us that play we could easily see that this is a long-term trend
01:47 This is not something that's one year or two year and we wanted to be at the forefront of it
01:51 So we were we launched a direct plan platform on the day on day one
01:56 So we are not a regular plan platform that eventually became a direct plan platform, right?
01:59 We always believe that we have to build systems which are for the best of the end investor
02:06 We were the first guys who went completely free. So Kubera was the first completely free
02:11 Direct plan platform. This was in 2017 when there were hardly any direct plan platforms
02:18 Of course a lot of competitors have picked up the same and now you have five or six or maybe more
02:22 Direct plan platforms which are free. So in that sense when we think about it our biggest contribution
02:28 So far has been to kind of change the whole idea of what a investment platform should be
02:35 People could not imagine that there could be direct plan platforms or a free direct plan platforms
02:41 Now that is a given if you're launching a direct plan platform, it has to be free, right?
02:46 so the amount of money that we have saved through our actions and by kind of
02:50 Convincing some of the other competitors or some of the other people who have launched similar platforms to also go free
02:55 It's it's putting a lot of money back into the investors pocket, right? So the journey so far has been has been very good
03:01 I mean, it's it's challenging. It's challenging for a small team to kind of, you know, build something at scale
03:06 It's also been a big learning experience for us
03:09 We have been lucky that from the get-go
03:12 We have gotten very good kind of brand champions on board early on we call them happy covariance
03:17 and
03:20 The word of mouth we have received has been fantastic, right? People talk about us usually in good terms and we get very good feedback
03:26 Like, you know, this can be improved
03:29 This is how it can be improved and we have always been very big proponents of a very fast
03:33 Cycle of taking feedback and implementing it. So yeah, so we are on track with our targets
03:39 We want to kind of grow at a certain pace. We are very interested in how many investors we have on board
03:44 How much money gets invested every month on our platform and those are the those are the metrics we want to be leading at
03:49 Which thankfully we are right now
03:52 We're not too worried about app downloads
03:55 We're not too worried about you know, the kind of some of the vanity metrics that also go in any online business
03:59 So it's been a good journey. It's I think
04:04 It's just the start though. I think the next 10 to 15 years are going to be very critical on how the entire personal finance
04:11 Management space in India gets redefined not just by us, right?
04:15 I think some of our competitors are very good players. They're bringing in
04:20 New ways of thinking new ways of marketing into the market. So I think at the end of the day everyone will win
04:26 It's about how quickly
04:28 You can pick up those best practices and include them in your product
04:32 So my next question is very generic that if I want to invest and someone else want to invest
04:38 Why he should opt for Kubera? What are the services that you are offering?
04:41 Can you familiarize our viewers in a very simple language?
04:45 Sure, sure. So
04:48 It's a problem of choice, right? So like I think every vertical in India it becomes very competitive very quickly
04:55 In Kubera what we focus on is solving for problems that an Indian investor will have
05:03 Starting from when you import your portfolio to Kubera, right? Simple stuff you can invest in the same folios that you used to have
05:09 You can invest as a family so we have a family account feature where
05:15 There's just one login and you can see all your family accounts and you can see your overall wealth
05:20 We do end-to-end goal planning
05:22 So if you want to plan for your goals, which we highly recommend that people who are investing should
05:28 Whether it be you know, buying a car buying a house or your kids education
05:31 Then you can plan for it and we'll kind of give you a roadmap on how to reach it
05:35 We advise on rebalancing we advise on
05:38 Long-term capital gains harvesting. So, you know, yeah, you have a one lakh rupee long-term capital gain harvesting
05:44 And we'll give you an advice on how to take advantage of that. So all in all
05:49 Ease of use was the kind of the first stepping stone for any online investing services, right? But now
05:56 Ease of use is something that is a hygiene factor
05:59 Everyone expects ease of use everyone expects, you know fast good customer service. I
06:05 Think the differentiation will come on
06:08 Can you solve for specific issues that Indian investors face and do you have a solution for that?
06:14 And that's where we want to differentiate ourselves
06:16 So we say that okay table stakes is ease of use then the value-added features that we have some of the services that we provide
06:24 or
06:26 Some of the feature sets that we have
06:28 We don't see anyone else in the market that has all of those feature sets yet
06:32 And that's where we want to be and that's where we want to keep good
06:34 You
06:36 (upbeat music)