Saving & Investment App Jar raises $4.5 million led by Tribe Capital & Others
Jar, a three-month-old saving and investment app based in Bangalore, raised $4.5 million in a Pre-Series A financing led by Tribe Capital, Arkam Ventures, and WEH Ventures on Wednesday.
Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Shaan Puri (Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming & Emerging Markets at Twitch), Manik Gupta (ex-CPO, Uber and Co-founder of San-Francisco-based CVKey), and Ali Moiz were among the angel investors who participated in the round (Founder at US-based Streamlabs, Peanut Labs Media and Stonks Inc).
The company was formed in May 2021 by Nishchay AG, a former director and founding member of mobility startup Bounce, and Misbah Ashraf, the founder of community-focused retail platform Marsplay (bought by Foxy in 2020).
In just three months, the app claims to have grown by 350 percent month over month, reaching 0.5 million users.
“Jar is designed to help people build a habit of saving. There are over 900 million Indians who have a bank account, but only about 30 million of them make any kind of investments. We are using gold because it’s an asset that has always delivered,” said Nishchay, who had met his co-founder during his stint at Bounce.
The company was collaborating with Misbah's company Marsplay when the two came up with the idea of launching a new company focused on saving and investing for Generation Z.
“Jar’s vision resonates with our thesis on how millennials’ need for financial well being can be met through extraordinary product innovation. We are impressed by Jar’s ability to drive user behaviour at scale in the very attractive market of financial planning and investing,” said Rahul Chandra, Managing director at Arkam Ventures.
In the Indian market, a flood of savings, investing, trading, and financial planning apps aimed at the younger generation have emerged. Walnut, Saveabhi, and Splitwise are digital apps aimed at saving money, whereas Fundsindia, Kuvera, Invezta, Zerodha, and Groww are digital apps aimed at wealth management.
“Most of the saving 1.0 products in India were mimicking the western counterparts and therefore couldn’t scale. Jar is a product made for India, ground-up and plays strongly to the Indian ethos of saving. The product is frictionless to use and therefore, users are excited to open the app multiple times in a week, something we don’t see too often in fintech products,” said Rohit Krishna, General Partner at WEH Ventures.
In the near future, the business intends to expand its offers beyond gold. The funds will be used to expand the company's personnel and develop new products.
Ali Moiz, an angel investor based in the United States, bet on the founders' "strong founding team and hustle mindset."
“Jar has built a great team with an impressive background and hustle mentality. The app has demonstrated solid early traction, is intuitive and uses an idea that has already proven successful in the U.S,” he said.
Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Shaan Puri (Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming & Emerging Markets at Twitch), Manik Gupta (ex-CPO, Uber and Co-founder of San-Francisco-based CVKey), and Ali Moiz were among the angel investors who participated in the round (Founder at US-based Streamlabs, Peanut Labs Media and Stonks Inc).
The company was formed in May 2021 by Nishchay AG, a former director and founding member of mobility startup Bounce, and Misbah Ashraf, the founder of community-focused retail platform Marsplay (bought by Foxy in 2020).
In just three months, the app claims to have grown by 350 percent month over month, reaching 0.5 million users.
“Jar is designed to help people build a habit of saving. There are over 900 million Indians who have a bank account, but only about 30 million of them make any kind of investments. We are using gold because it’s an asset that has always delivered,” said Nishchay, who had met his co-founder during his stint at Bounce.
The company was collaborating with Misbah's company Marsplay when the two came up with the idea of launching a new company focused on saving and investing for Generation Z.
“Jar’s vision resonates with our thesis on how millennials’ need for financial well being can be met through extraordinary product innovation. We are impressed by Jar’s ability to drive user behaviour at scale in the very attractive market of financial planning and investing,” said Rahul Chandra, Managing director at Arkam Ventures.
In the Indian market, a flood of savings, investing, trading, and financial planning apps aimed at the younger generation have emerged. Walnut, Saveabhi, and Splitwise are digital apps aimed at saving money, whereas Fundsindia, Kuvera, Invezta, Zerodha, and Groww are digital apps aimed at wealth management.
“Most of the saving 1.0 products in India were mimicking the western counterparts and therefore couldn’t scale. Jar is a product made for India, ground-up and plays strongly to the Indian ethos of saving. The product is frictionless to use and therefore, users are excited to open the app multiple times in a week, something we don’t see too often in fintech products,” said Rohit Krishna, General Partner at WEH Ventures.
In the near future, the business intends to expand its offers beyond gold. The funds will be used to expand the company's personnel and develop new products.
Ali Moiz, an angel investor based in the United States, bet on the founders' "strong founding team and hustle mindset."
“Jar has built a great team with an impressive background and hustle mentality. The app has demonstrated solid early traction, is intuitive and uses an idea that has already proven successful in the U.S,” he said.
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