After completing his engineering from DDIT Nadiad, Nisarg Gandhi joined Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) as Class I Officer in Ahmedabad in 2007.
Since he had grown up in a business family, Gandhi had always wanted to do something on his own. But before taking the plunge he wanted to learn the basics of doing business. So, in 2010, he quit his coveted job with ISRO to pursue MBA from IIT Bombay. After passing MBA, he took up a job in Colgate India as an in-charge of production team in 2012.
While Gandhi did not have any concrete business ideas, he started preparing by saving through SIP in MFs in order to raise capital. So in order to save money for his venture.
After working in Colgate for three years, Gandhi quit the job to start thinking of ideas for his business. Though he evaluated many ideas, he could not firm up anything.
One day, while looking at his investment portfolio, Gandhi came across his mutual fund statements and was amazed by their performance. His investments had grown so much that he could he could easily sustain for three years without a job. The performance of mutual funds intrigued him and he started in-depth research in them.
Nisarg has a habit of keeping notes of all his investments. He had been maintaining an excel file to track all his investment in one place. As he was going through this excel file, he realized that it must be so difficult for a lay person to track all their investments. This was the ‘eureka moment’ for Gandhi. “I wanted to simplify tracking investments for people,” says Gandhi.
Gandhi rushed to a local tea shop to meet his friend Jasmin Gohil, his friend from engineering college, who shared a similar entrepreneurial dream. Gohil had worked with a few multinational companies as a techie.
Gohil liked the idea of helping people simplify their personal finance needs. He partnered with Gandhi to start their new venture. Since people spend a lot of time on their smartphones, they launched an android app called ‘Wealthee’ where users can consolidate their savings and investment accounts. This app also enables users to pay bills, monitor investment portfolio and manage cash flows. Later, they decided to facilitate investments in mutual funds. For this, they launched a new app called WealthTrust.
Surprisingly, from the very first day, they decided to sell direct plans only through this app. “Currently, there are a lot of distributors who provide online investment services. Only a few online players are providing direct plans through their platforms. Through direct plan, an average investor can save nearly 1% every year and increase his wealth by 30% over long term,” claims Gandhi.
Investors have to pay a monthly subscription fee of Rs. 99 to use this app. While Gandhi is not expecting to make a lot of money by this subscription fee initially, he believes that volumes will help him grow business in future.
Currently, WealthTrust is serving over 150 investors. They have received 350 sign ups with over 8,000 downloads. They are managing assets under advisory of Rs. 3 crore through this app.
Gandhi says that this app also allows existing mutual fund investors to switch to direct plans in a few seconds without any paperwork. All investors need to do is fill up the form and upload a picture of their PAN and a selfie.
Recently, WealthTrust has received funding from venture capital firm India Quotient. Going ahead, Gandhi says they plan to launch a web version of this app.
