Lemonn will be housed as a separate business division with its own management and operational teams, led by Devam Sardana as the business head, said Ashish Singhal, cofounder and group CEO of PeepalCo group, during a press briefing on Tuesday. Sardana has been with CoinSwitch since April 2022.
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“The first target for us is to reach product market fit. Less than 6% of India invests in stocks today and there is a big market out there. Tens of lakhs of users today enter the stock market every single month, and these are new investors. Also, many users are leaving the stock market as well because they are not able to sustain. That is what Lemonn is built for,” Singhal said.
The platform will offer zero trading brokerage for the first three months and no fees for account opening. Subsequently, it will introduce a flat broking fee structure.
“We are evolving our offerings, and it would be around the product market fit. We are open to multiple models on subscriptions, on flat fees, on annual fees, and a lot of that will evolve once we solve the right problem for the users,” Sardana said.
Lemonn currently supports equity investments, with plans to introduce mutual funds and investments in initial public offerings (IPOs) in the future. It also features analyst ratings for stocks and a glossary of financial and stock market terms for its target users.
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Singhal plans to showcase the Lemonn app to their existing crypto users, but stock broking will require a separate app download and adherence to know your customer (KYC) norms and broking guidelines as laid out by the sector regulator. The Lemonn app currently holds a stock broking licence. The company said it intends to utilise previously raised funds by PeepalCo for Lemonn’s growth, and existing investors will get stakes in the new platform.
CoinSwitch has raised more than $300 million till date to build a cryptocurrency trading exchange and had attained a valuation of $1.9 billion in 2021. It is backed by the likes of a16z, Ribbit Capital and Tiger Global Management.
Bengaluru-based startups Groww and Zerodha collectively hold a significant 40% market share in India’s stock broking industry. According to September 2023 data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Zerodha had a user base of 6.5 million, slightly below Groww’s 6.6 million.