The 1% Club Eyes Expansion Into Fintech, Targets INR 30,000 Cr AUM In 2 Years

Finfluencer Sharan Hegde’s financial edtech platform The 1% Club is looking to expand its service portfolio to offer a wide range of fintech products. 

In an interaction with Inc42, Hegde said that the startup is mulling launching a suite of fintech products, including fixed deposits (FDs), mutual fund baskets, bond investments, and crypto-based exchange traded funds (ETFs).

He also hinted at entering the stock advisory segment, similar to that offered by companies like ET Money Genius, subject to regulatory approvals.

Founded in 2022 by Hegde and Raghav Gupta, The 1% Club is a members-only financial education platform that offers educational resources, mentorship, and networking avenues for its paid members. The startup last raised INR 10 Cr in its Pre-Series A funding round led by Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath-backed VC firm Gruhas in 2023.

The 1% Club competes with the likes of MoneyGuide, Fintso, Era , FinBox, Wealth42, among others. 

Notably, the startup acquired its registered investment advisor (RIA) licence six months ago. Since then, it claims to have amassed INR 750 Cr in assets under advisory (AUA). Hegde attributed this rapid growth to the startup’s brand reputation and existing client base of over 1,000 members.

“In the next couple of years, we are eyeing to manage between INR 20,000 Cr to INR 30,000 Cr in assets,” he added. 

The 1% Club also launched insurance advisory service ‘Pillow Insurance’ recently. Hegde claims to have served 10,000 clients in the past six months via this service. 

Now, the startup is also looking to start a credit card advisory service. “This will be one of the first kinds in India, where people can choose the best credit cards and optimise reward points for travel and hotel bookings,” Hegde said. 

AI Adoption Sprucing Up Bottom Line

The 1% Club is also in the process of applying for a research analyst (RA) licence to expand its advisory capabilities. The RA licence allows the holder to provide buy, sell, hold recommendations for securities to its clients.

All these steps will help the startup further expand its top line. Hegde claimed that The 1% Club has been profitable since its inception, and the external funds raised by it remain largely untouched and are invested in fixed deposits. 

He said that the startup’s current annualised revenue for the financial year ending March 2025 (FY25) stands at approximately $10 Mn (INR 86.9 Cr). This would be 2.8X higher from INR 31.4 Cr ($3.6 Mn) revenue from operations it generated in FY24. Its net profit stood at INR 5.5 Cr ($632K) during the year as against INR 13 Lakh in the preceding year.

Hegde said that the startup is expected to end FY25 with an EBITDA margin of 25%. 

Besides its growing top line, the increasing usage of AI to automate content creation and app development seems to have benefited the startup’s bottom line.

Hegde said that The 1% Club has been able to reduce production time for content and complete 70% of its app’s coding using AI tools, enabling faster rollouts with a smaller team.

In November last year, the startup also laid off about 15% of its workforce in a restructuring exercise. At the time, Hegde had said that there were some “hiring mistakes” and the growing role of AI also was one of the reasons for the job cuts.