As a fintech reporter, it's embarrassing to admit that investing is hard. There are so many options that need so much research. It only adds to the guilt. Overwhelmed by it all, I'm tempted to leave my hard-earned money in the savings account. Why shouldn’t investing be as easy as making payments? Jar, the Bengaluru-based digital gold investment platform, figured it could ride on digital payments' success to get people to invest. The app rounds off online transactions and allows users to invest the spare change in digital gold. For instance, when a user spends ₹253 (US$3.17) on a food-delivery app like Swiggy, the Jar app rounds off to ₹260 (US$3.26) and gives the user a choice to invest the remaining ₹7 (US$0.09) in digital gold.
With this hook, in just two years, it's already off the blocks with nearly 10 million users. And investors seem to love it even more than its customers. Just last month, Jar raised US$23 million in a Series B round. Its valuation soared to US$300 million, thanks to the backing from money bags like Tiger Global and Rocketship. It has raised US$65 million so far and nearly 90% of that has come in 2022—bang in the middle of the funding winter. The company is expected to break even in 2023-24, according to the company's valuation. What got it here was selling digital gold, but that may not be what its future holds. The very fundamentals of its business could change shape because the stock market regulator has different designs on how digital gold should be sold in the country.
