As the Indian economy reeled out of the pandemic, post-2020 many consumers woke up to an uncertain future. Even as the threat of job cuts looms over both the broad tech and startup industries, consumers are increasingly turning to online investment apps to park funds and spending more on health insurance plans. Recent data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India show that retail investors are betting big on systematic investment, with monthly flows in the MF industry touching a record high of Rs 13,040 crore in October 2021.
These economic circumstances have brought a good opportunity for startups in savings and investments space. Lately, tech startups have come up with diverse modes of investments beyond just the traditional lump sump and SIPs.
However, Bengaluru-based investment app Fello is attempting ‘gamify’ traditional investments by offering interactive mobile games. Users can start saving and investing in assets like digital gold and receive gaming tokens for every rupee they invest. Using these tokens, users can play several in-house games such as Cricket, Football, and Tambola to win exciting prizes every week which they choose to either redeem or reinvest back into savings.
Founded in 2021 by new-age entrepreneurs, Manish Maryada (CEO) and Shourya Lala (CTO), the gamified fintech app caters to India’s g zillennial and millennial generations. It incentivizes users for saving money and receiving higher returns higher than their traditional savings accounts. Fello is currently serving 5.3 lakh users with nearly 80% of them being first-time investors.
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The startup recently raised $4 million in equity funding led by US-based Courtside Ventures, with participation from, Entrepreneur First, Y Combinator, and others.
Maryada told FE in an interaction that he and his co-founder discovered a large underlying market opportunity to attract young users to equity investments. He discovered that the biggest that the younger generations of consumers did not have an inclination towards healthy finance habits wherein a massive 60% of the users surveyed did not have enough money saved up to meet any emergency needs.
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“But we found that there is a huge inclination for zillennial and millennial users towards playing paid fantasy and casual style gaming applications. They were spending large amounts to get a huge financial reward as financial gratification…Now that is when we realised why don’t we change how people consume finance as a whole and offer it with a gaming-first product,” added Maryada.
The asset classes available on Fello currently include gold and fixed deposits without any lock-in period along with a 24/7 withdrawal option providing greater liquidity than traditional savings options.
Savings app
* Bengaluru-based Fello helps grow your money and earn weekly rewards by saving in secure assets!
* Fello is currently serving 5.3 lakh users with nearly 80% of them being first-time investors