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Stockal, a New York-headquartered platform with its India office in Bengaluru that enables global investments for Indians, on Thursday announced that it has raised $3 million in pre-Series A funding round to support its growth into newer markets. The company says the funding will help it to become the platform of choice to invest in global markets across various asset classes. 

The fresh funding brings the total investment into Stockal to $5 million since it was launched in January 2020.

Venture capital firms who participated in the round include Aroa Ventures — an investment initiative of Ritesh Agarwal’s (OYO Rooms founder) family office, Cadenza Capital Management, wealth management platform Kristal.ai, startup research platform Tracxn Labs, July Ventures, and Credence Family Office.

Stockal will use the funding to boost its growth into new markets, starting from Indonesia in Southeast Asia. The company is also investing heavily in developing its service offering, such as its recently launched Stacks portfolio management platform which enables users to choose from a range of carefully tailored investment opportunities created by global asset management and wealth management companies such as GlobalX Funds.

“At Stockal, we are working towards our mission of democratising global investing. Geographical boundaries should not be a constraint when you are looking at investing and participating in the global economy. With this strategic fund infusion, we will be able expand to multiple new capital markets and offer unique and diversified asset classes to our customers,” said Vinay Bharathwaj, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Stockal.

“While we have established our presence in India significantly and currently manage over $100 million, we aim to capture a huge potential growth market of about $800 billion which includes MENA and SE Asia. These new funds will help us enhance the platform as we build for a wider audience,” Vinay added.

Stockal was founded with the aim to help India to have a stake in a variety of assets — including shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and hedge funds beyond domestic markets. This has opened up an avenue for retail investors to invest in stocks of large companies, starting at as low as $10 in fractional ownerships. 

Since January last year, Stockal has attracted over 60,000 users from India alone, who are trading half-a-billion dollars worth of assets and amassing nearly $100 million assets under management (AUM).

Large financial institutions such as HDFC, Motilal Oswal, Geojit, and dozens of wealth management and fintech outfits in India and the Middle East have partnered with Stockal to bring cross-border investments to their own customers.

“We founded Stockal to open the best global capital markets to all global investors, enabling anyone to participate in investment opportunities anywhere in the world. This allows retail investors to access the full range of high-calibre companies, funds, and other interesting assets on a seamless and affordable fractional investing platform,” said Sitashwa Srivastava, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Stockal.