PowerUp Money Bags $12 Mn To Expand Mutual Fund Advisory

Wealthtech startup PowerUp Money has raised $12 Mn (about INR 107 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners. The round also saw participation from existing investors Accel, Blume Ventures and Kae Capital, 8i Ventures, and DeVC. 

The round, which comprised entirely of primary capital, comes just six months after the Bengaluru-based startup raised $7.1 Mn in its seed round.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to strengthen its research team, scale its paid advisory product PowerUp Elite, and launch a high-touch managed advisory offering PowerUp Infinite.

Founded in 2024 by Prateek Jindal, PowerUp Money is a SEBI-registered investment advisor offering  a research-led, zero-commission mutual fund advisory platform

The startup allows users to review their mutual fund portfolios for free using MFCentral data combined with its in-house research. Its app categorises funds as “in form” or “out of form”, giving users a quick view of portfolio performance. Within eight months of launch, the platform claims to have onboarded over 5 Lakh users and is tracking over INR 65,000 Cr in mutual fund assets.

Its paid offering, PowerUp Elite, is priced at INR 999 per year and provides personalised advice such as fund replacement, SIP correction, rebalancing and asset allocation. The startup claimed the product has crossed 25,000 paid subscribers so far.

Advisory, Not Distribution, Is The Real Gap: Jindal

Speaking to Inc42, founder Jindal said PowerUp Money was built around a gap that emerged following the rapid increase in mutual fund participation in India over the past few years.

The number of mutual fund investors has risen from under 25 Mn in 2021 to nearly 60 Mn today, bringing a large number of first-time investors into the equities market and creating confusion around fund selection and portfolio construction, Jindal said.

PowerUp Money aims to solve this problem by advising on direct mutual funds without charging any commissions from asset management companies. 

According to Jindal, commission-led models introduce an inherent bias, while a paid advisory model aligns the platform’s incentives with long-term investor outcomes.

PowerUp currently generates around INR 2.5 Cr in annualised revenue through its subscription product PowerUp Elite. 

Jindal said that the upcoming product ‘PowerUp Infinite’ – a fully managed, one-on-one advisory offering – is aimed at investors with portfolios above INR 50 Lakh. 

He said the offering will combine human advisors with AI-led tools, where AI will act as a co-pilot to reduce dependency on human intervention while keeping human oversight for complex decisions.

Going ahead, PowerUp Money also plans to allow users to execute buy and sell transactions for direct mutual funds within its app. Jindal said this will let users act on the platform’s advice without moving to another platform.

This comes at a time when wealthtech products are seeing a lot of interest from investors amid the rising participation of retail investors in the equities market. Last week, Inc42 exclusively reported that trading platform Sahi is in talks to raise $30 Mn to $35 Mn in its Series B funding round at a valuation of over $200 Mn.