Zerodha - Company Highlights

Company Name Zerodha

Bengaluru,
Headquarters
Karnataka, India

Finance, Stock
Industry
Exchange

Nithin Kamath,
Founders
Nikhil Kamath

$606.91 million (Rs

Revenue 4,964 crore in
FY22)

$255.98 million (Rs

Profit 2,094 crores in
FY21)

 With a total client base of more than 1.6 million,

Zerodha earned revenue of ₹850 crores in the
financial year 2019. The claimed net profit on this
revenue was ₹350 crores in the same financial year.
 In the financial year 2018, Zerodha earned revenue of ₹4.5
billion. This was two times more than that in the previous
financial year. Besides, the company's profits doubled to 2
billion rupees in 2018.
 The company hit revenue of ₹220 crores and made a profit
of ₹120 crores just after 7 years of its opening i.e. in the
financial year 2017.
 The company made a profit of Rs 65 crore on
revenue of about Rs 119 crore in 2015-16
 "For the FY 2014-15, our annual topline revenue
was around Rs 70 crores
 Zerodha posted revenues of Rs 37 crore in 2013-
14, almost double from the previous year. Its 42,000
clients do Rs 4,500-5,000 crore worth of trades daily
 Company Name Zerodha

Funding Bootstrapped

Valuation $2 Billion+

Founded 2010

Website zerodha.com

Zerodha - Startup Story

The founder and CEO of Zerodha, Nithin has been trading in the
Indian stock market since the age of 17. Nithin attended an
engineering college and then went on to become an entrepreneur.
During his college years, he spent considerable time trading in the
stock market and that forced him to take up a job at the call centre.
Hence he worked at the call centre during the night and saved the
daytime for trading.
“I did this, working-trading, for almost 3 years during 2004-5, post which, I quit my job when I got
my first client who asked me to manage money for him after looking at the positive returns on
my trading account,” says Nithin Kamath.

Though Nithin managed to make quite a fortune by trading in stocks,

he lost a significant amount of money in the stock market crash of
2001-02. However, he eventually landed a cheque from a foreign HNI
to manage his money, which he did along with landing a job at
Reliance Money, where he served as a sub-broker.

Within a very short span, Nitin managed to get many big clients for
Reliance Money. At Reliance Money, Nitin was one of the most
successful sub-brokers, breaking volumes of more than 1000 sub-
brokers at once.
“But as a trader, I was still finding something missing with the way RMoney was working, not
really what a trader requires. That is when we decided to start Zerodha,” added Nithin.

Nithin again lost a considerable amount of money in the market crash

during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. After this, he decided to
change ways and started to develop an idea of building a company
that will provide online stockbroking services for all the traders of the
country, which will be simple to use and affordable.

Zerodha - Startup Launch

After the founders, Nikhil and Nitin found Zerodha, it took a long time
for them to establish a market standing. It was a slow transition that
happened over the last decade. Zerodha, in its first year, opened
3,000 accounts. In India, when the cost of any product or service is
less, people generically start questioning the quality. And that was the
biggest milestone for Zerodha founders to conquer. As a result of
which, they build a community that also helped them in the long run.
Even today Zerodha doesn‟t spend any money on advertising.

The focus on building a community for the traders helped Zerodha.

This was because the initial doubts of the traders towards Zerodha‟s
discount broking model was stemming from the fact that retail
investors were often clueless about what stocks should be bought or
sold, and did not ideally offer any research services. To counter this
challenge, Zerodha launched Varsity. Varsity is a learning module that
became immensely popular. It ran Trading Q&A, an active forum
where traders and investors were able to discuss stock ideas.

Over time, Zerodha used technology heavily to differentiate itself from

the rest in the market. Its trading platform named Kite on web and
mobile today account for more than 10% of all retail trading turnover in
the country. Zerodha also went on to launch Coin, which is an online
platform to buy mutual funds directly.

Zerodha - Mission and Vision

Zerodha is firmly committed to working towards the vision of creating
a world without any brokers, which will hugely benefit the
stakeholders when it comes to the financial markets. Furthermore, the
company is equally committed to providing the best possible customer
experience with the help of a support and service that can be highly
personalized.

Zerodha envisions creating a brokerage-free world.

Zerodha - Name, Logo and Tagline

The name "Zerodha" is an English-Sanskrit portmanteau word
consisting of "Zero" in English and "Rodha" (Barriers or
Obstructions) in Sanskrit, to sum up as "No Obstructions". This
name of the company directly signifies the birth of a challenge-
free online stock-broking platform that Zerodha is!

Zerodha - Business Model and Revenue

Model
The business model of Zerodha works on a 'Low margin and high-
volume model.' Zerodha charges a very minimal amount to the traders
for transactions because of which the trading volume is generally high.
This fee collection of smaller amounts from a larger number of clients
leads to good revenue generation for Zerodha. Also, one more factor
aiding high-profit margins for the company is the operational costs.
They are quite low for Zerodha as compared to some of the top
brokers because of its online structure, which allows it to maintain low
operational costs.

Zerodha has finally got approval from the SEBI (Securities and
Exchange Board of India) to offer mutual fund services, said Zerodha
co-founder Nithin Kamath via his Twitter handle. The company had
applied for the license of the same in February 2021. This will help
Zerodha to launch its asset management company, (AMC) and is
surely another feather in its cap.
Zerodha - ESOPs
Zerodha created a new ESOP pool for its employees, as of November
1, 2021. Under this ESOPs Plan 2021, the company has allocated
around 7,00,000 options, as per the regulatory filings of the company
with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

The company then issued another ESOP pool that is estimated to be

worth around Rs 100 crore at the beginning of Q3 2022.

Zerodha – Competitors
Zerodha is a discount broker providing Fixed Price brokerage services without
any monthly fees or additional charges like software uses charge.

There are other discount brokers who work on different model including fixes
monthly rent for trading with them. For example R K Global has a plan with
Monthly Membership Fees Rs 999 (+ 100 software uses charge) and provides
unlimited trading in NSE Capital Market Segment. The problem with this
model is; you have to pay the rent irrespective to you use it or not. Also for
each segment you have to buy separate plan.

Ventura, R K Global and Unicon provide retail plans for a fixed price monthly
rental.
  Zerodha faces some cut-throat competition in the market. It is
competing with other discount brokers like Upstox.
Simultaneously, Zerodha also faces serious competition from
full-service brokers which are huge and popular amongst the
traders such as HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, Motilal
Oswal, Upstox
 SAS Online
 IIFL
 Finvasia
 Angel Broking
 Beeline Broking
 TradingBells
 Karvy Stock Broking
 Sharekhan
 Motilal Oswal
 HDFC Securities
 ICICIdirect

1. Upstox – Discount Stock Broker

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Company Name Upstox
Founded Year 2009

Headquarters Mumbai, India

Total Clients 30,27,803

Parent Company RKSV Securities India Private Limited

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Upstox is a technology-driven, low-cost brokerage firm in India that
offers trading opportunities at unbeatable prices. The company offers to
trade in various segments such as equities, commodities, currencies,
futures, and options available on Upstox Pro web and Upstox Pro
Mobile trading platforms.
Upstox is backed by investors, including Kalaari Capital, Ratan Tata,
and GVK Davis.
Upstox trading platform offers trading, analysis, charting, and many
other comprehensive trading features. This platform makes it easy to
place orders via mobile phones and web browsers. Upstox trading
platform is based on Omnisys NEST OMS (Order Management System)
and Omnisys NEST RMS (Risk Management System).
Upstox offers free trading accounts and free trading in the Equity
Delivery segment. Trading in Stocks F&O, Equity Indra -day,
Commodities and Currency Derivatives is available through Upstox Pro.
UpStox Pro is UpStox’s paid service for traders.

2. Angel Broking – Full-Services Broker

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Company Name Angel Broking
Founded Year 1996

Headquarters Mumbai, India

Total Clients 19,79,094

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Angel Broking (now under the name “Angel One” to be a platform for
all financial needs) is an Indian stockbroker established in 1987. It is a
member of Bombay Stock Exchange, National Stock Exchange of India,
National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited, and Multi
Commodity Exchange of India Limited. It is a depository participant in
Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL). The company has more
than 8500 sub-brokers and franchisees in more than 900 cities across
India.
The company’s services include online stock trading, custody services,
commodity trading, and investment advisory. This company also offers
personal loans and insurance. In 2006, Angel Broking also started
portfolio management, IPO business, and mutual fund distribution.
3. ICICI Direct – Full-Services Broker
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Company Name ICICI Direct
Founded Year 2003

Headquarters Vadodara, India

Total Clients 18,47,989

Parent Company ICICI Bank Ltd.

Showing 1 to 4 of 4 entries
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ICICI Direct is a trading and investment service for retail clients of
ICICI Securities. The company offers its services both online and
through a network of branches across India.
ICICIDirect.com, the company’s flagship website, offers Online Equity
Trading, Derivatives Trading, Mutual Fund, IPO, Fixed Deposit, Bonds,
NCD, Wealth Products, Insurance, Loans, etc. An ICICI Direct customer
can avail of all these services through a single account.
ICICI Direct offers a 3-in-1 account, a combination of a savings bank
account, a share trading account, and a Demat account. The ICICI 3-in-1
account facilitates smooth trading through the real-time transfer of funds
from the bank to the trading account and automatic debit/credit of
securities from the Demat account.
4. Groww – Discount Stock Broker
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Company Name Groww
Founded Year 2016

Headquarters Bengaluru, India

Total Clients 13,51,472

Parent Company Nextbillion Technology

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Groww is an online investment platform that allows investors to invest
in mutual funds and stocks. Headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, the
company has raised more than $140 million by April 2021, at a
valuation of $1 billion.
5. 5Paisa – Discount Stock Broker
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Company Name 5paisa
Company Name 5paisa
Founded Year 2016

Headquarters Thane, India

Total Clients 10,02,020

Parent Company IIFL Holdings Ltd

Showing 1 to 4 of 4 entries
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5paisa.com is a leading online stock broker offering discount brokerage
services to retail investors in India. 5paisa Capital Ltd is a listed and
professionally managed company promoted by IIFL founders. As of
March 2021, the company had over 1.2 million customers.
6. HDFC Securities – Full-Services Broker
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Company Name HDFC Securities
Founded Year 2000

Headquarters Mumbai, India

Total Clients 9,70,651

Parent Company HDFC Bank

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PreviousNext
HDFC Securities Limited is a financial services intermediary and a
subsidiary of HDFC Bank, a private bank in India. HDFC Securities was
established in 2000 and is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in all
major cities in India.
As Per The Latest Report, HDFC Securities is Going To Start Discount
Brokerage, Which Zerodha Should Be Very Cautioned.

We pioneered the discount broking model in

India.
Now, we are breaking ground with our
technology.
We kick-started operations on the 15th of August, 2010 with the goal of breaking all
barriers that traders and investors face in India in terms of cost, support, and
technology. We named the company Zerodha, a combination of Zero and "Rodha",
the Sanskrit word for barrier.

Today, our disruptive pricing models and in-house technology have made us the
biggest stock broker in India in terms of active retail clients.

Over 1+ Crore clients place millions of orders every day through our powerful
ecosystem of investment platforms, contributing over 15% of all Indian retail trading
volumes.

In addition, we run a number of popular open online educational and community

initiatives to empower retail traders and investors.

Rainmatter, our fintech fund and incubator, has invested in several fintech startups
with the goal of growing the Indian capital markets.

And yet, we are always up to something new every day. Catch up on the latest updates
on our blog or see what the media is saying about us.

Indian brokerage firm Zerodha’s net profit doubled to Rs 2,094 crore in FY22. This was 82 per
cent up compared to Rs 1,112 crore in FY21. According to the company’s regulatory filings with
the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Kamath brothers-founded company also saw its operating
revenue surging 82 per cent to Rs 4,963 crore in FY22 compared to the year-ago figures.
However, rise in revenues and profit apart, the company also saw its operating expenses jumping
71 per cent in FY22 to Rs 2,164 crore. The Bengaluru-based brokerage company’s employee
benefit expenses (EBE) grew by 45 per cent. It reported the EBEs to be Rs 459 crore in FY22.
The tech company’s information technology expenses also saw a surge of 78.2 per cent standing
at Rs 303 crore in the last fiscal year.

Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath not looking to

raise funds even as unicorns
mushroom; wants this instead
Nikhil and Nithin Kamath launched stock brokerage firm Zerodha in
2009. Till date, the company, which competes with the likes of Groww
and Upstox, has not raised any funding. In an interview with Business
Today earlier, Nikhil had said that they were tempted to raise funds in
the initial years but there weren‟t any investors at that time. “When we
needed money, not many were offering it,” he said. He also revealed
that they don‟t have any IPO plans.

India‟s largest retail broker Zerodha will not join the likes of Cred, Groww
and other promising startups who recently raised funds from investors.
Zerodha‟s founder Nithin Kamath took to Twitter to explain why his
company is not looking to rope in investors even though funds have
been lining up to invest. “Right now, is probably the stupidest time for
fintech firms like Zerodha to be raising money. It is quite crazy the
number of folks reaching out & the different deals,” Nithin Kamath said.

erodha currently has over 6 MILLION customers, beating traditional

stockbrokers such as ICICI Securities, HDFC Securities and even new
age brokerage firms such as Angel Broking. Kamath said that Zerodha
does not need the money and will not raise funds “just because
someone is ready to give it to you”. “We are profitable, have zero debt.
And we don‟t spend on marketing and advertising which is probably the
single biggest reason for folks raising money,” he added.

Although he conceded that Zerodha might regret not raising funds in the future but
remained adamant about not doing so. Nithin Kamath added that he does not want
Zerodha to “grow just for sake of growth with random businesses”, but instead wants to
build things around the company‟s core competency.

Hard to continuously grow

Zerodha is the leading player in India‟s stock brokerage industry by the number of active
clients. Nithin Kamath, who is also the CEO of Zerodha, said that the business he runs
is directly linked to the fortunes of the stock market. “The hotness of our industry can
disappear overnight with a 20% fall in the markets,” he warned, adding that taking
investor obligations to continuously grow would be hard in such an industry.

The discount brokerage has recently introduced steps that help customers from making
trades that could result in significant losses using its „Nudge‟ feature. Nithin Kamath said
that this reduces their trading volumes but his company is focusing on getting the “right
product for the customer”. “…all of these theses may be wrong. But the freedom of not
being obligated to an investor is much more valuable than the biggest cheque,” he
added. Zerodha has nearly 25% retail volume share in India and has one of the highest
daily trades globally, according to a recent Bernstein report. Zerodha had self-assessed
its value at $1 billion in 2020 when it went for an Espo buy-back

Building a business requires a moat. Be it a better product, deeper pockets

(investors), or the ability to stay customer focussed at all times. In an industry like
ours, what is right for the investors (VCs) is hardly ever right for the customer (more
trades, loans, etc).

Our bet is that in a fight of deep pockets, the ability to do what is right for the
customer will be our edge. For eg, the focus now is to help traders be profitable
using Nudge. Each nudge reduces our trading volume and revenue but is the right
product for the customer.
But yeah, all of these theses may be wrong. But the
freedom of not being obligated to an investor is much
more valuable than the biggest cheque. And having
the option to say all of this is probably a moat in itself.

Why doesn't Zerodha advertise?

The only time we experimented with ads was for our
brand keyword, show our website if you search
"Zerodha". We stopped immediately when we
realized that it made no difference to the traffic and
the ad was essentially cannibalizing our organic
traffic while costing us money.

12 years of Zerodha

Broking industry update

While the last two years have been phenomenal, we are seeing a plateau in trading
activity and a 40% drop in new user addition since the market topped earlier this
year. This isn‟t just with the Indian broking industry, but globally. We are unlikely to
have the same activity as last year, unless we maybe hit all-time highs and are in
another bull market.
The regulatory reforms in the industry are now at full throttle. While almost all of the
changes are for the good of the industry and participants in the long run, they can
disrupt brokerage businesses in the short term. Not just changes affecting revenue
models, but drastic operational changes. Inability to quickly adapt to regulatory
changes is probably the biggest risk for the brokerage industry, apart from the risk of
markets going lower. As Zerodha, we are confident of our position to handle such
regulatory changes.

Having interacted with brokerage firms from across the globe, I do not doubt that our
capital markets, thanks to SEBI, are by far the best regulated and the safest for retail
investors in terms of intermediary risk.

Account safety
Since we don‟t charge any brokerage for equity delivery trades, usually, the question
I get asked is if the business is profitable and sustainable. This is an important
question to ask when dealing with any platform that you trust with your savings and
investments.

When we started in 2010, we first started building the business for very active
traders who pay us Rs 20 per executed order. Only in 2015 did we reduce our equity
delivery charges to Rs 0 to attract investors. Today, we have not only the largest
group of active retail investors in India, but also active traders. Traders who pay fees
and, in turn, help keep investments for free. While many of our newer competitors
started with free investments, they have now started charging for it. We intend to
keep it free unless regulatory changes reduce the active trading activity.

We have been extremely frugal in how we operate. This, combined with not
spending on marketing and advertising, has meant that we are now amongst the
most profitable new-age businesses in India. We have over thirteen years of runway.
That is, we have sufficient capital to continue running our business for 13 years,
even if our revenue went to zero. Our networth as a percentage of total customer
funds is now more than 25%, which must be amongst the highest globally. We have
been a zero-debt business from the start. Everyone on our team also hold significant
stock options and is invested in the business doing well, which can only happen if
you as a customer are happy with us.

The new SEBI regulations have also significantly reduced the risk in the ecosystem,
from capping all leverages to ensuring the broker has more skin in the game as the
business grows. Some of these regulations are also why I think our markets were
less volatile, and the stock prices fell lesser than the larger developed markets
between March and June this year, the first time I have seen such behaviour.
There has been some noise about the account compromises at Zerodha. I want to
reiterate what I recently shared on social media.

o Out of the ~65 lakh customers who traded with us last year, we had about 100
complaints of fraud. In around 80 cases, the customer willingly shared login
details with the fraudster, and in another 20, the email was hacked, and these
were all Rediffmail IDs. As a percentage of such cases or even normal
complaints to overall active customers, we are amongst the lowest in the
broking industry.
o So this isn‟t just about us; regardless of the broker, you need to be careful not
to share your login details & use a secure email. Since all email hacking
cases happened to be Rediffmail accounts, it must have been some
vulnerability that‟s being exploited. We blocked Rediff IDs on trading accounts
a while ago and have constantly been notifying users to switch to a different
email service provider. We also now don‟t send password reset emails to
Rediff email IDs.
o We will soon launch a tool that will disallow trades in illiquid options far away
from theoretical price + a Kill Switch option to block orders in all penny stocks
similar to F&O. These will also address the root causes of most hacking
attempts.

We are already transitioning all our customers to 2FA using TOTP by Sep 30th
2022, as mandated by the exchanges. This was optional until now. This will further
improve the safety of your account.

Our improving support

By far, the weakest link in the business historically was our support. It deteriorated
when the business scaled up quickly. We made a bunch of large changes over the
last 18 months, and I am happy to let you know that the average wait time on calls is
less than 2 minutes and our average first response on most tickets is within 1-2
hours. Thanks for using our support portal before deciding to call or raise tickets; this
has also helped reduce response times. Our customer ratings have also significantly
improved over the last 12 months.

I understand that averages can be deceptive and hide calls or tickets that had to
wait much longer than the average or where our response wasn‟t up to the mark.
We are working on it. Our quality team tracks almost every low-rated call or ticket
and sees how we can improve, and it also brings in more accountability to everyone
on the team responding to you. So make sure to rate interactions when you are
unhappy with the quality of the response. It will help us get better.
Different from other.
This has been the foundation on which we have built the business from the start, not
just in our product but in every aspect of the business. You can read this post by K
or Kailash, our CTO, to know more about how we actively disengage. We don‟t do
any data mining and find ways to trigger you to transact in the markets. When
trading and investing, we understand that doing less or nothing is the right thing to
do. This is also why we haven‟t ever sent emails or push notifications nudging you to
trade.

We only reach out digitally to customers when there is a product or business update.
We did have a sales team who would call back customers who signed up but didn‟t
finish onboarding, but we stopped that process and moved the entire team to
support. We didn‟t want to call and disturb customers or prospects who have not
asked us to reach out to them. Interestingly, it didn‟t make any difference to the
customer onboarding rates.

Business and product updates

We spent most of our time last year on significant improvements to various backend
technologies. While you might not have seen as many changes in the user
experience, these changes are why we probably were amongst the best in terms of
uptime of trading platforms not just in India but globally over the last 12 months. Our
priority is to keep improving on this metric. A lot of time over the last year was also
spent ensuring there‟s no business disruption due to the regulatory changes, which
was a big challenge at our scale.

Here are some important updates from the last year:

o Introduction of online nomination. Make sure to nominate if you haven‟t already done
so.
o Iceberg orders to reduce impact costs.
o Time-limited orders.
o Instant online account closure.
o Kill switch to disable trading instantly.
o Family portfolio view on Console.
o Varsity video series and Varsity in हिन्दी.
 o The one thing that a majority of Indians struggle with is insurance, especially given
the rampant mis-selling. We have partnered with Ditto to make insurance simpler.
o Close to launching Loan Against Securities (LAS) that had been in beta.
o We continue to support and partner with more fintech startups in the capital markets
through Rainmatter Fintech. If you‟re building something in the space, please do
reach out to us.

Why Zerodha brokerage is less?

Zerodha is an online stock broker offering almost all of its services online by
leveraging the latest computer technology and the internet. Zerodha does
volume business with a highly scale-able online trading platform. This makes it
possible for Zerodha to offer trading at an ultra-low-cost.

Zerodha doesn't have branch offices, doesn't spend money on advertising

campaigns and doesn't offer services like research and advisory.

How Zerodha attracted non-customers

Moving everything online reduced the costs of offline branches. It
increased the speed of trading and executions using technology. It
eliminated or reduced the fees charged to the investors. It started
different financial literacy programs like 'Varsity' and 'TradinQnA'—a
forum for traders to ask questions. It created several new features like
automating fund updates and Kite–a self-service broking platform. It
also brought advanced trading tools like 'Pi' and 'Q' for charting and
analysis. To solve the problem of awareness, it made a book called
Rupee Tales that educated children about financial investments.

Zerodha’s main attraction has been its pricing model. The registration
fee was minimum, to make sure fake accounts stayed away. Zerodha
came up with a flat slab of Rs 20 per deal. It removed complexity and
increased returns, leading to a massive number of customer
registrations. For long-term equities trading, they opted for zero
pricing. The competition could not react to this move due to high
operational expenses and verticalisation. Or they might not have seen
this new entrant as a threat because of the unattractiveness of online
mode during those times.

The Kamath brothers saw Zerodha of 2010 with a future like Jeff
Bezos’ Amazon in 1994. Internet penetration was about to rise to 45
percent in 2021 from a meagre 4 percent in 2007. Additionally, the
number of smartphone users in India was about to become 750
million, with about 34 percent lying between the age of 25 and 34
years. Financial services accessibility through debit cards, internet
banking, and UPI also played a decisive role in the easy onboarding of
clients. The total investor size of India rose from 20 million in 2012 to
70 million in 2021. But nothing was possible without Zerodha not
anticipating what lay ahead.

What Zerodha started, a decade back as a lone warrior is now an arena

with new competitors rising every day. Today, there are about 15
major players in the Indian brokerage space—the significant ones are
Upstox, Angel Broking, Groww, and ICICI Securities limited, holding
about 41 percent of the active clients. While Upstox and Groww are
similar to Zerodha, Angel Broking offers offline services also. ICICI
Securities remains in competition due to its high penetration in the
banking space. Discount broking services are now facing stiff
competition from new entrants like PayTM money, which is resorting
to price wars.

Zerodha has recently received an in-principal approval from Sebi to

start mutual funds. To grow sustainably while keeping the
differentiation intact, the company would have to focus on its
customer experience in delivery and service now. Being the fastest in
terms of account opening, trading, and other services would
distinguish it from the others.

The future of discount broking is ripe with stiff competition but the
market is still a blue ocean. Indian equity investors are just 3.7 percent
of the total population, whereas China has 12.7 percent. The race in
the Indian market is to get those new investors on board. If Zerodha
wants to continue leading in the market share, it needs to again get to
the roots of the new investor behaviour, just like it did a decade back
and expand its market boundaries
Zerodha - Rainmatter Foundation
In January 2021, Zerodha set up Rainmatter Foundation, a non-
profit foundation that aims to support
individuals/organizations/companies working towards problems
related to climate change. Rainmatter Foundation has committed
a $100 million fund towards the above directions.

As the Head of Rainmatter Foundation, Sameer Shisodia (Founder of

The Farming Collective and Linger Leisure) is working towards this
collective goal. The Foundation has invested in Terra (online climate
school training climate entrepreneurs on climate science, policy,
business, and social justice), and Blue Sky Analytics (Provides real-
time and predictive environmental intelligence).

Marketing expense vs word of mouth

publicity
Nithin Kamath too agreed that not every business could be bootstrapped. “If I am
building an e-commerce business where someone else can build it quickly, spend more
money marketing, get to users fast, that business has to be built raising capital,” he
said. “But in our business, we realised word of mouth was the right way to go about it
and I realised not having money as an obligation is going to help.
 Nithin Kamath

Founder, CEO

Nithin bootstrapped and founded Zerodha in 2010 to overcome the hurdles he faced
during his decade long stint as a trader. Today, Zerodha has changed the landscape of
the Indian broking industry.

He is a member of the SEBI Secondary Market Advisory Committee (SMAC) and the
Market Data Advisory Committee (MDAC).

Nikhil Kamath
Co-founder & CFO
Bio
Nikhil is an astute and experienced investor, and he heads financial planning at
Zerodha. An avid reader, he always appreciates a good game of chess.

Dr. Kailash Nadh

CTO
Bio

Kailash has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence & Computational Linguistics, and is the
brain behind all our technology and products. He has been a developer from his
adolescence and continues to write code every day.

Venu Madhav
COO
Bio

Venu is the backbone of Zerodha taking care of operations and ensuring that we are
compliant to rules and regulations. He has over a dozen certifications in financial
markets and is also proficient in technical analysis. Workouts, cycling, and
adventuring is what he does outside of Zerodha.
 Hanan Delvi
CCO
Bio

We take pride in the way we support our clients, and Hanan is responsible
for this with his never ending flow of energy. He is the man behind many of our
support initiatives that have helped us stay ahead of the game. A free thinker, Hanan
can be seen posing as one in his free time.

Seema Patil
CQO
Bio

Seema worked with an international airline business for over 6 years before joining
us. She uses her experience of liasing with people from various backgrounds to ensure
that our ever expanding support team maintains highest quality. She is an extremely
disciplined fitness enthusiast.
 Karthik Rangappa
Chief of Education
Bio

Karthik "Guru" Rangappa single handledly wrote Varsity, Zerodha's massive

educational program. He heads investor education initiatives at Zerodha and loves
stock markets, classic rock, single malts, and photography.

Austin Prakesh
Director Strategy
Bio

Austin is a successful self-made entrepreneur from Singapore. His area of specialty

revolves around helping organisations including grow by optimizing revenue streams
and creating growth strategies. He is a boxing enthusiast and loves collecting
exquisite watches.