Former Paisabazaar chief executive officer Naveen Kukreja is in talks with investors to close the first institutional funding round for his new startup, two people in the know said.
The $9-million round could see two venture funds participate along with infusion from Kukreja himself, they said.
Singapore-based Jungle Ventures may invest in the venture, which is in stealth mode, one of the people said.
“In his next venture, Kukreja wants to build a wealth management platform targeting retail investors,” the second person said.
Emailed queries to Kukreja and Jungle Ventures remained unanswered until press time Thursday.
After running PB Fintech’s credit marketplace Paisabazaar for over a decade, Kukreja stepped down from his role in March 2025 to start his next venture.
The idea is to build a platform where investors can create a score around their investments and the platform will use technology to offer better investment advisory and distribution as well.
“The advisory part will be around allocation of emergency funds, insurance gaps and asset allocation rebalancing – an area where a lot of opportunity is opening up,” one of the sources said.
The startup will be offering distribution services and will seek to become a registered investment advisor (RIA) to run this business in a compliant fashion.
“The funds will be used to secure distribution licences as required and given the market is very competitive the founders want to scale quickly,” the other person said.
A banker by profession, Kukreja had worked in Citibank, Capital One Bank and Aviva India before joining Paisabazaar as cofounder and chief executive officer in 2014.
His new startup is entering a highly competitive space.
Powerup Money, Otto Money and Stable Money are all startups targeting retail investors who cannot afford very high quality professional advisory from large wealth firms, but can be served at a lower cost through technology. These new-age companies have raised significant funding on the pitch that new-generation investors need better advisory than the traditional relationship-driven ones.
ET reported on June 9 that HNI-focused wealth management platform Nexedge Capital is looking to close a $25-million funding round to be led by South Korean finance major Mirae.
Venture investors are pumped about the opportunity in this space, but at the same time they are concerned about the startups’ capabilities around retaining customers, generating revenue through subscriptions or creating enough assets to make the business viable in the long run.
