Groww on WebNotes

Direct mutual fund portals comparison: Coin vs Groww vs Kuvera vs MFU

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Direct mutual fund plans, mandated by SEBI since 1 January 2013, allow investors to invest in mutual fund schemes without routing through a distributor, thereby avoiding the trail commission embedded in regular plan expense ratios. Several platforms have been built to facilitate direct plan investing: Zerodha Coin, Groww, Kuvera, MF Utility (MFU), and others.

This article compares the four prominent direct plan investment platforms on key dimensions: unit-holding model, registration type, SIP mechanism, account fees, scheme universe, features, and regulatory status.

Groww

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Groww is an Indian discount broker and retail financial services platform, incorporated as Groww Securities Private Limited for stockbroking and Groww Invest Tech Private Limited for mutual fund distribution, and headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Founded in April 2016 by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal, all former Flipkart employees, Groww initially operated as a direct mutual fund distribution platform before obtaining a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) stockbroking licence in 2020. By 2023, Groww surpassed Zerodha and Angel One to become the broker with the largest active client base on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), a position it maintained through 2025 and into 2026 with over 12 million NSE-active clients. The group holding company, Billionbrains Garage Ventures Private Limited, is backed by Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India (Peak XV Partners), Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and other venture investors, and was valued at approximately US$3 billion at its 2021 Series F round.

Indian retail brokers comparison

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

India’s retail broking industry has undergone a structural transformation since 2015, accelerating sharply after the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of demat accounts grew from approximately 40 million in March 2020 to more than 150 million by early 2024, adding first-time investors at a pace no other market matched in that period. This growth was catalysed by the rise of discount brokers offering zero or flat-fee brokerage, app-first onboarding, and simplified interfaces that lowered the entry barrier for retail participation in Indian stock exchanges.

Zerodha vs Groww

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Zerodha and Groww are India’s two most widely used retail stockbrokers by active client count as of early 2026. Both operate a discount model, charging flat fees rather than percentage commissions, yet they have reached that common ground by different paths and serve partially distinct user profiles. Zerodha, founded in 2010 by Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, is the older firm and remains the reference implementation of the Indian discount brokerage category. Groww, founded in 2016 by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal, entered first as a mutual fund distribution platform before acquiring a full broking licence and expanding aggressively into equity and derivatives.