Goalwise : Goal Based Mutual Fund Investing

Every investment is made with a goal in mind. Be it for buying a house, for children’s education or for going on the world tour that you always wanted. Though we all save money to achieve our goals, due to lack of time or investment related expertise we fail to make the most out of our savings. This is where Goalwise comes into play.

Goalwise is a Fintech startup based out of Bangalore, that ensures hassle-free, goal-based mutual fund investing. Read about Goalwise, founders, business model, funding, challenges and future plans.

Goalwise - Company Highlights

Startup Name	Goalwise
Headquarter	Bengaluru
Founders	Swapnil Bhaskar, Ankur Choudhary & Savitri Bobde
Sector	Mutual Fund Investments
Founded	April, 2015
Parent Organisation	Niyo Solutions
Website	Goalwise.com

What is Goalwise
Latest News - Goalwise aquired by Niyo Solutions
Mutual Fund Industry Details
Goalwise Founders and Team
How was Goalwise Started
Goalwise - Name, Tagline and Logo
Goalwise - Business Model and Revenue Model
Goalwise - USPs and Innovation
Goalwise - User Acquisition
Goalwise - Funding and Investors
Goalwise - Startup Challenges
Goalwise - Competitors
Comparison : Goalwise Vs Scripbox Vs Kuvera
Goalwise - Awards
Goalwise - Growth
Goalwise - Partners
Goalwise - Advisor and Mentors
Goalwise - FAQs

About Goalwise

Goalwise is a Fintech startup based out of Bangalore, that ensures hassle-free, goal-based mutual fund investing. It helps people invest for their financial goals according to their risk profile without them having to worry about asset allocation, mutual fund selection, etc. One simply has to visit their website or download their app from Google Play Store or App Store to get the best investment options.

Latest News - Goalwise aquired by Niyo Solutions

On July 28, 2020, The Digital Banking platform Niyo Solutions acquired Goalwise for an undisclosed value. As part of the deal, the founding members of Goalwise will be joining Niyo’s leadership team and operate Niyo Wealth as an independent vertical.

The majority of stakes were picked up by Vinay Bagri (CEO, Co-founder) and Virender Bisht (CTO, Co-founder). This acquisition was intended to align with Niyo's goal of Building a comprehensive products suite.

“With our combined resources, we will now be able to accelerate our road map for advanced features and inclusion of many more financial products,” said Swapnil Bhaskar, CEO and co-founder of Goalwise.

Mutual Fund Industry Details

According to AMFI data, assets managed by the Indian mutual fund industry have grown from INR 22.71 trillion in March 2018 to INR 24.58 trillion in March 2019. That represents an 8.25% growth.

Again, the Mutual Fund industry had added about 9.13 lacs SIP accounts each month on an average during the FY 2018-19, with an average SIP size of about Rs 3,070 per SIP account.

Goalwise - Founders and Team

Goalwise was founded by Swapnil Bhaskar, Ankur Choudhary and Savitri Bobde in 2016.

Swapnil Bhaskar is the CEO of Goalwise. He is responsible for spearheading the company’s overall vision and growth and he also heads its Financial Advisory department. Swapnil graduated in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2007. He is also a SEBI RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) and a NISM certified Retirement Advisor. Prior to establishing Goalwise, he worked as a field engineer at Schlumberger where he worked for 4 years abroad and then as a Manager at the State Bank of India where he worked for 3 years across multiple verticals of retail banking. Additionally, he is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).

Ankur Choudhary is the CIO of Goalwise. He is responsible for creating investment strategies including Mutual Fund selection and asset allocation strategies, while also overseeing the product and content functions. Having graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B. Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Ankur went on to work as an investment strategist at Oxus Investments, New Delhi and then as a Quantitative Researcher (Algo trading) at WorldQuant, Mumbai. Along with possessing outstanding academic credentials, Ankur also holds the distinction of co-authoring a book on a statistical analysis of cricket titled Criconomics.

Savitri Bobde is the COO and Product lead at Goalwise. She is responsible for overseeing the execution of all initiatives undertaken by the company and guiding the operational processes of all departments. Savitri holds a Masters degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in English literature from the esteemed St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. After completing her education, she spearheaded the assessment unit at ASER Center, Pratham where she was involved in designing and implementing large scale assessments across India, including the flagship ASER survey that reaches approximately 600,000 children each year in almost all districts in the country.

The company currently has a team of 20 employees. Every employee is offered ESOPs to make them feel inclusive in the company’s growth.

How was Goalwise started

It was in 2015, Ankur was looking for some good and hassle-free options to invest his money. However, to his disappointment, he did not find any investor friendly platform in India. Though, he noticed that there were some online platforms in the US who were using cutting-edge technology to deliver a fully managed solution to US investors.

Meanwhile, Swapnil was working in the banking sector, where he witnessed rampant mis-selling. The scenario struck the mind of the two youth, and they wanted to do something to make a difference. And finally, one day over a call Ankur and Swapnil decided to start Goalwise with the dream of making hassle-free, transparent, world-class goal-based investing and financial planning accessible to all Indians.

"We did a lot of market research before we started up and found that people connected better with their goals than with just Mutual Funds. Hence we launched Goalwise as a goal-based investing platform. In the market research days, we even promoted our competitor’s platforms within our target audience in order to uncover the objections people had with them. Even today we have a lot of conversations with our customers on a daily basis so that we never operate in a vacuum. We initially started operations from Delhi but then moved to Bangalore because of the tech talent availability (and better weather!).", said Ankur and Swapnil.

The company had a soft-launch phase from February 2016 to April 2016 to test its product.

Goalwise - Name, Tagline and Logo

Previously, alpahfront.com was the name the company during Market reserach phase as it aligned with its former parent company Alphafront Finserv Pvt Ltd The name was later changed to Goalwise keeping in mind the goal-based approach the company follows.

"As we zeroed in on the concept of goals and financial planning, we came up with a shortlist of a few names like Goalwise, Finmiles for whom the .com domain names were available. We did a quick poll amongst our friends and although Goalwise was not the top choice because it did not sound not money related, we decided to go with it based on our gut feeling. And it seems to have turned out well for us.", said Ankur Choudhary.

Goalwise Logo

Goalwise - Business Model and Revenue Model

The startup offers its customers a ‘set and forgets’ goal-based investing platform that manages all aspects of investing including fund selection, glide path, portfolio re-balancing, target tracking for goals and more.

It is a zero-research-required platform as investors don’t need to bother about selecting or changing funds. All of that is taken care of by the in-built digital advisory. Apart from seamless investment solutions through website and app, Goalwise also facilitates one-on-one personal finance planning led by its team of in-house financial experts.

A personalized investment plan is generated after considering the customer’s age, savings, suitable risk profile, target amount and the time horizon. The plan consists of the amount one would need to invest every month, the Mutual Funds the person should invest in and what the asset allocation (debt and equity) should be.

Goalwise’s advisory engine (GoalSense) continuously monitors the investments to ensure that the investor is on track to achieve the set goal.

"Unlike our competitors that are mostly DIY platforms urging investors to do their own research after bombarding them with conflicting options, Goalwise comes as a respite where zero research is required by the investors.", said Swapnil Bhaskar.

The startup's revenue model is straightforward. The company operates as distributors and financial advisors and get a small % fee (known as trail commission) from the Mutual Fund companies where investments are made.

It is a zero commission platform. It does no take any charges from the investors. They also don't have any transaction charges, account opening or maintenance charges.

Goalwise - USPs and Innovation

One click Portfolio Rebalancing– It helps investors maintain the original desired level of asset allocation, and all the required re-balancing transactions for meeting the customer’s investment goal is done with just a click.
Tax Gain Harvesting- It helps the investors in systematically utilizing the 1 lakh equity LTCG ( Long Term Capital Gain) exemption available every financial year to lower the overall tax liability.
On-track/Off-track goal tracking- It helps the investor keep a track of his goals.
One-on-one financial planning by in-house financial planners- The startup focuses on providing the best investment experience be it via their beautifully designed product or their prompt and knowledgeable customer service.

The mutual fund investments are held directly under the name of the user, and these can be redeemed anytime.

Goalwise - User Acquisition

According to Ankur, marketing was never a priority for the company. The company focused on doing the right thing for its customers. The company acquired its first 100 customers from within friends and family. Soon, Goalwise was able to attract many customers through word of mouth publicity.

The startup was covered in some online publications when they announced their seed funding which gave them more visibility.

Another channel was content – Goalwise publishes content related to personal finance and investments on their blog as well as on other websites, which helped them get in front of more customers.

"If I had to pick one thing that really worked well for us, it has been word of mouth and referrals. Because of the focus on product and service, we are today the best rated Mutual Fund app and we have grown to more than 25,000 sign-ups just by word of mouth.", said Ankur.

Goalwise - Funding and Investors

Goalwise has raised seed funding worth $1 Million (around Rs 6.8 crore) in 2016 from HNI. As per the company filings, Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary was nominated to be the 4th director of the company. Akhilesh is also the founder of quadeye Securities.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
May 2016	Seed	$1 million	Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary and others

We were quite fortunate with the kind of investors we got on board as they have been extremely helpful and supportive throughout the whole journey - Ankur.

Goalwise - Startup Challenges

According to Ankur, one major challenge that Goalwise faced was of bringing the entire KYC process online. KYC for Mutual Funds requires an almost 20-field form, 2-2 documents and in-person verification. This was in 2016 so there was no Aadhaar-based KYC. The team spent a considerable amount of effort in building out the entire KYC process online which included online video recording and were one of the first platforms to provide that.

Besides, some other challenges are the lack of financial awareness and education in Indian society. Overall, Mutual funds are still at a nascent stage in India with only 2% of the population investing in it.

According to Ankur, a lot of efforts are needed by everyone in the industry to make the Indian population more financially educated so that everyone can make better decisions with their money as there are many Indians who still are only limited to investing in gold, real estate, etc.

Goalwise - Competitors

Some of the competitors of Goalwise in the Indian Industry are, Fundsindia, Scripbox and Zerodha Coin. However, apart from Scripbox, all the others tend to be DIY platforms where the investors are supposed to do their own research.

None of our competitors including Scripbox, provide true end to end goal based investing which includes features like glide path, portfolio rebalancing and goal-tracking.

Apart from that, the company also recently released a Tax Gain Harvesting feature which is the first of its kind in the industry. It takes inspiration from similar platforms outside India like Betterment and Wealthfront as they keep raising the bar in terms of user experience.

Comparison : Goalwise Vs Scripbox Vs Kuvera

Goalwise provides zero-commission Direct Mutual Funds which makes investing with Goalwise completely FREE, Whereas Scripbox provides commission-laden Regular Mutual Funds. Scripbox is one such popular portal which allows users to invest in a pre-selected list of Mutual Funds.

Find more detailed insight in the table below:

Goalwise - Awards & Achievements

Goalwise has been awarded following awards:

Recognized by LiveMint as one of the top 10 promising brands to watch out for in 2018.
Awarded by prestigious Mutual Fund companies like ICICI Prudential and Reliance as one of their fastest growing online partners for 2017 and 2018.

Goalwise - Growth

Currently, Goalwise has customers across India, and also have NRI investors from Middle East, Singapore and Europe.

Some of the major achievements of are:

40,000 registered users across 450+ cities
over 20,000 app downloads
Highest rated Mutual Fund app on the play store and our combined rating across platforms is about 4.7
Added term insurance to its product portfolio, and is also planning to add health insurance and accident insurance soon.

Goalwise is looking forward to doubling its tech team and tripling its advisory team to efficiently meet the growing demands. The company is expecting to reach a mutual fund AUM of 1000 crores towards the end of 2020.

Goalwise - Partners

It has tied up with several Mutual funds.The mutual funds it has tied up with include Franklin Templeton, ICICI Prudential, Birla Sun Life and Axis Mutual Fund.

Goalwise - Advisor and Mentors

The company was advised by Dexter Capital, which offers services to growth stage companies as well as new-age entrepreneurs in the early stage funding process.

Goalwise - FAQs

Who is Savitri Bobde?

Savitri Bobde is the Co-founder, COO and Product lead at Goalwise.

Also Read: How Money Front is simplifying investments in Mutual Funds

What is Goalwise's Funding till date?

Goalwise has raised seed funding worth $1 Million (around Rs 6.8 crore) in 2016 from Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary and other.

Also Read: Money View - Teaching India the Habit of Monitoring Finances on Daily Basis!

Who is the Parent Organisation of Goalwise?

Niyo Solutions, The Digital Banking Platform.

Also Read: Money Tap - Instant Loans are just a tap away!

How is Niyo Solutions connected to Goalwise?

The Digital Banking platform Niyo Solutions acquired Goalwise for an undisclosed value on July 28, 2020,