Grip Invest aiming for Rs 1,000-crore AUM by 2022-end

Hyderabad: Grip Invest is an investment marketplace that provides retail investors with options to co-invest and have partial ownership in physical assets that generate lease income. The company provides a lease finance platform where investors can purchase and lease assets to companies, providing them an additional investment tool while enabling companies to grow faster by […]

Hyderabad: Grip Invest is an investment marketplace that provides retail investors with options to co-invest and have partial ownership in physical assets that generate lease income. The company provides a lease finance platform where investors can purchase and lease assets to companies, providing them an additional investment tool while enabling companies to grow faster by converting capex to opex. Vivek Gulati, co-founder & COO shares with Y V Phani Raj how their business model is evolving and growth plans.

Business model

Grip bridges the capital gap for high-growth businesses, and offers attractive, fixed return opportunities to retail investors through options such as lease and inventory financing. We identify assets for investment and construct deals with leasing partners that meet our financial and risk criteria, offer investment options available on the Grip platform, set-up and ensure compliance of the special purpose vehicle, which owns the asset. We also monitor the investment over the tenure and ensure timely payment of lease rental.

Target segment

Grip caters to retail investors who are in the age group of 25-40, working professionals with an annual salary of over 15 lakhs. These users have portfolios in mutual funds and fixed deposits and are now seeking opportunities to diversify for higher risk-adjusted returns. We also cater to companies looking to leverage lease financing and access new forms of capital.

Diversification tools

For investors, Grip provides diversification tools, which are non-market linked, and offer asset backed investment avenues. Investors participating in leasing normally take a corporate credit exposure and receive returns monthly. Grip has so far offered lease investment opportunities across 100 plus investment deals to its 1,75,000 users (consisting of resident and non-resident Indians).

EV leasing

With the current growth seen in e-commerce, grocery delivery and EV sector, we are witnessing a high demand and interest from both companies and investors in the sectoral investments. Grip today is the largest platform to lease electric vehicles in India. In the last 12 months, we have deployed over 4,000 EVs with 25 companies and have seen a 30 per cent month-over-month growth in leasing volume on our platform.

Asset leasing

Since inception, we have facilitated the leasing of assets worth Rs 180 crore to some of India’s most disruptive businesses, including Udaan, Stanplus, Stanza Living, Furlenco, Bounce, Blue Tokai, Everest Fleet, IPLElectric, FabAlley and LetsTransport as our partners. So far, we have enabled over 75 companies to access a different channel of growth capital.

Hyderabad deals

We signed a lease financing deal of $2 million with Stanplus under which Grip plans to enable Stanplus in strengthening its network of ambulances and further help capitalise on alternative forms of capital growth. Another Hyderabad-based company that we have worked with is Bird Eye Solar Technology.

Growth plans

We are focused on offering asset-backed, corporate credit, fixed income options. We are working towards piloting 2-3 more industry-first unique products over the next few months. Our business goal is to reach an AUM of Rs 1,000 crore by the end of 2022.

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