Poor financial education is a major problem in society and Kredent InfoEdge was the earlier ones to realize this. “Since 2008, We have been focused on training retail investors on various aspects of financial management. The offline centre through various modules has trained over 10,000 participants till date,” says Vivek Bajaj, Co-Founder, Kredent InfoEdge. Seed Capital for Kredent InfoEdge was invested by a financial service firm based out of Kolkata. Later a pre-series A was concluded in 2018 by with investments from market stewards like Shri Ramesh Damani, Shri Ajay Sharma and Shri Dinesh Agarwal, owner of indiamart.com. Currently, the business is in the investment stage.
In 2014, the company launched its online financial learning venture Elearnmarkets.com for the purpose of taking financial education to all over the country. As on date, there are over 150,000 learners from over 200 cities in India taking over 100 finance learning modules, some certified by NSE Academy, MCX, NCDEX and many more. As part of providing full financial freedom to retail investors and helping them to become less dependent on intermediaries, we are also developing tools which would help everyone to become a do-it-yourself market participant. One of the tools launched in May 2016 is StockEdge App,” shares Vineet Patawari, Co-Founder, Kredent InfoEdge.
As on date, the StockEdge App has over 1M downloads with an active user base of 200,000 and rating of 4.6, highest rated finance app in this category in India. “StockEdge is a freemium app with almost 1B data point in its database and has recently introduced a premium plan with value-added features like a thematic watchlist, portfolio of ACE investors and ready strategies,” adds Vinay Pagaria. Kredent InfoEdge has also launched the StockEdge Club, a community of stock market investors to focus on learning and networking.
What Makes Kredent InfoEdge Different?
Kredent InfoEdge is a niche player concentrating on the finance sector, which intends to meet lifetime needs of learning finance, tracking financial markets, earning and managing money. Vivek Bajaj claims, “No other existing platform combines all the requirements of a learner & practitioner of finance in such a compact and simple manner. We work with a single objective of Simplifying Finance for All.”
The industry is fragmented with various people doing various work independently. “We are trying to work on an integrated model with the right knowledge as the core requirement of the user. For example, the financial market training industry is very fragmented having various individual trainers,” pinpoints Vineet Patawari. Elearnmarkets is a platform which brings together learners and subject matter expert related to finance. Similarly, StockEdge gives investors and traders access to refined data of 6000+ companies. It also provides readymade scans, watchlists, portfolio of ace investors and much more.
“In the first few years, our focus was more oriented towards social responsibility. However, since 2014, there was a shift in vision as well as orientation as adapted technology to reach to a larger audience with cutting edge products,” shares Vinay Pagaria. In FY 2018-19, Kredent InfoEdge generated revenue of Rs.5.5 crore. “Our current revenue comes from offering online financial training through Elearnmarkets and subscription of data analytics services through our StockEdge App. We are also developing further tools which will add transaction revenue in future,” adds Vivek Bajaj.
Target Audience and Potential Growth
In India, around 3.5 crores students are pursuing graduation and above qualifications. “Our target audience is first-timers in financial management. The first-timers could be youngsters, job seekers, young earners as well as the retiree population of India. Anyone interested in getting into formal financial instruments is our best TG as they need proper knowledge and mentorship which is currently grossly lacking in the industry,” explains Vineet Patawari. Kredent InfoEdge believes that their integrated solutions will help individuals to become independent in their decision making.
On the other hand, there are 75 crore unique bank account holders in India. Out of which only 2 crores are invested in mutual fund and less than 1 crore invests in the direct equity market. Only 1.5 per cent of India’s population is investing in non-banking financial products. “This is leading to poor wealth creation and distribution. The core reason behind such a lag is poor financial literacy, lack of access to data and biased analytics from various intermediaries. We believe we can become a major catalyst to the change and help better financial inclusion in India,” states Vinay Pagaria. At present, Kredent InfoEdge has 100+ employee and has over 500,000 registered userbases combining all products.
In India, everyone is an expert, especially when it comes to managing money. The general perception is that people are ready to lose money by taking wrong decisions and not invest in own learning and development. This mindset is gradually changing as traditional methods of financial management is also evolving. “Young population, especially the millennials are changing the business landscape across industries. We believe that due to our thrust on knowledge, we will be a major beneficiary in the ecosystem,” concludes Vivek Bajaj.