By addressing the fundamental problems of traditional investment methods through transparency and simplification of investments, Tauro Wealth is inculcating the habit of online investment in the stock market amongst India’s young population.

With a savings rate of nearly 31 per cent of the nation’s GDP, Indians like saving for a rainy day. Yet, only 30 per cent of this capital is invested in financial assets due to a lack of financial knowledge and the right tools at one’s disposal to make a sound investment, rues Harsh Vardhan Singh, co-founder, Tauro Wealth (Tauro). Through its investment platform, Tauro aims to encourage investors to invest in the stock market by providing innovative options that are an alternate to traditional investment methods that might be expensive, unreliable and more importantly, lack transparency. “Our product uses the benefits of passive investing along with thematic investing to help investors generate better long term returns. Our suite of proprietary portfolio building algorithms is optimised to generate higher returns by eliminating human biases and errors from the process of investing,” explains Singh. While the company was founded in 2015, it has only been a month since Tauro went live and the initial response has been very encouraging. “We already have 1,200 registered users and in the last one month that our platform has gone live, we have had a tremendous response from over 100 customers who have begun investing through it,” says Singh.

Our suite of proprietary portfolio building algorithms is optimised to generate higher returns by eliminating human biases and errors from the process of investing.

Education, the way forward

One of the primary difficulties Tauro faces is to change the Indian mindset when it comes to investing in the stock market.  Getting customers to make the shift from gold and real estate to equities is something the company still considers a primary challenge. “This problem is further compounded by the fact that people have repeatedly been exposed to financial advisors and experts that intentionally mislead them or are trying to make the most money by selling complex or inappropriate products,” opines Singh. There is also the challenge of delayed gratification as with a longer term investment, customers do not see the benefit for years together. To deal with these challenges, Tauro conducts seminars and presentations for prospective customers and reaches out to a younger target audience to inculcate the habit of investing, early on.

Scope for growth

For Tauro to grow, the key lies in the company being able to provide its customers a more efficient way to invest and access to better financial products. At present, the company’s strength is just six and in these early stages, it is looking to constantly upgrade its platform to ensure that it is on par with global standards. Singh views the recent impetus from the government towards cleaning up the system in positive light. “The government is focussed on bringing major policy reforms to improve the strength of our economy by controlling corruption, reigning in the parallel black market economy and also driving growth through initiatives such as Make-In-India and Digital India. All these are tremendous developments for the long-term prospects of the Indian economy and also the stock market,” he states. Propelled by this and its own growth initiatives, Tauro hopes to serve over one lakh Indian investors over the next five years.

Snapshot – Tauro Wealth

Founder: Harsh Vardhan Singh

Year: 2015

City: Bengaluru

Concept: Tauro Wealth is an online stock market investment platform that encourages users to look beyond traditional means of investing

Investors: Undisclosed seed funding from TracxnLabs