The Representative

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ZFunds – Aiming to become Mother Dairy of Financial Services

4 min read
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Building Sahi, Asan Fin Services Platform for Bharat. The Inspiring Story of Ex-PolicyBazaar Executive, Manish Kothari’s venture Zfunds.in

In the era of today’s technology-driven world, Manish Kothari didn’t become successful with his start-up, ZFunds.in by being digital-first. “We wanted to disrupt,” Kothari says, wearing a smile with his trademark running shoes that he wears to the office. “We are focusing on digital refusers, India’s biggest consumer segment.”

A year back Kothari, 39, founded Zfunds on a simple insight: Many consumers in tier-2 & tier-3 towns may have onboarded digital in their lives, but have no interest beyond binge-watching or chatting on Whatsapp or Facebook. These people like digital interaction, but don’t have any love for the medium. They have especially no inclination to be involved in the tedious process of uploading documents upfront for their investments. 

Kothari, the son of a marwari stock market trader, first realized this as a PaisaBazaar head of investment business, that consumers are more keen with digital as a tracker in financial services products, but want human advisors to guide them through the onboarding process, and choosing a relevant product for their profile goals.

That’s how Zfunds.in kicked off with the founding team of four people last year and has gradually built a portfolio of Rs 500 cr, growing rapidly towards 2,000 SIPs a month run rate in its business. Today, it has an employee count of 30+ people, and 300+ advisors, who are a mix of retired bankers, insurance agents, chartered accountants, and existing mutual fund distributors, across the heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. 

The business strategy Kothari has preached ever since last year, are pretty commonsensical: Build distribution with strong door-to-door onboarding services, create product awareness with simplified content, get advisors at every major nook and corner of the town, execute strong consumer-awareness content, and just keep improving on these. 

“It’s easy to build a digital platform, put an algorithm-driven recommendation for selling products, but that doesn’t get you the customer who needs you the most in the small towns,” Kothari says. “The problem is digital refusers have been completely sidelined in this mad tech rush by new-age consumer internet companies.” As he adds, “We are here to solve their problems, build their trust in financial products, but not to make things complicated. They want ease, they want the human connection.”

Kothari’s secret sauce for ZFunds.in is not the category focus — it’s the blunt way in which it’s being delivered. “They just want a friend who can be their angel advisor,” says Kothari, who built the investment business of Paisabazaar.com (PolicyBazaar.com venture) from scratch to Rs 1,000 cr AUM during his three year stint there. 

A runner of multiple marathons, he has been driven by the inspiration of building the Mother Dairy of Financial Services through ZFunds.in. “It’s my dream. It isn’t a platform boxed in tech realms, it unboxes digital to do what is required of it to serve today’s small-town consumer. My advisors tell us things like ‘People want convenience, people want advice from a human. People want to do their investments quickly when they make up their mind.”

He adds what made him look at technology as the enabler, rather than the means to build financial services business. “The intrinsic behavior of people in remote and semi remote markets is different from what you see in metros. So the platform to distribute financial products should also be different. The same LIC agent has been serving the client for 2 generations, now has become a part of the family. At ZFunds, we want to empower these advisors digitally rather than replace them with technology.”

The lockdown, he believes, has been a boon for his business. “When we launched our Advisor App on 23rd March, we didn’t envision a lockdown like event would happen. I was shocked to begin with. Everything got shut, it was unbelievable. I was apprehensive that business would slow down. Going by my past experiences, I felt retail investors would panic and move out of the market, and that I got the timing of my advisor app horribly wrong.”

For the first time in his career, Kothari says that he was happy that his business foresight went wrong. “The business went up. Our typical consumer is a family person, who wants a financial guide. He just needs confidence, like all of us need in a difficult situation, to make brave long-term decisions. He has money, he wants a financial friend, who he can trust his money with.”

While there are countless mutual fund distributors and consultants around the country, Kothari says, he currently has no direct competitors. “I want to make mutual funds sahi and asaan in the true sense for Bharat. For me, it’s consumer education all the way, through our content, and providing them access to a financial guide.”

Zfunds current focus is on eastern UP region cities such as Benaras, Basti, Mirzapur, Jaunpaur, Deborah & Gorakhpur. “These cities are the true heartland of the country. I want to financially empower the heartland of India,” says Kothari.

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