'When we needed money, nobody was offering it,' says Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath

Zerodha is seen as a quintessential example of a profitable company. Lauded for being bootstrapped since the beginning, the company’s co-founder Nikhil Kamath told Business Today that in the initial years, even he was tempted to raise money. However, destiny had other plans. 

“When we needed money, not many were offering it,” he said adding, that when investors came to knock on the doors of the Kamath brothers, eight years had already passed and they had already built a profitable business, which didn’t need external funding.  

Nikhil Kamath launched stock brokerage firm Zerodha along with his brother Nithin Kamath in 2009. In 2019, Nikhil along with former Vice Chairman of Standard Chartered Private Bank, Richard Pattle, launched a wealth management venture, TrueBeacon.

It is also important to note that the Kamath brothers have also invested in several start-ups through their investment and incubation entities- Rainmatter Climate and Rainmatter fintech. Rainmatter has backed start-ups like CRED, Jupiter, The Whole Truth, Frappe, JODO, and a few others.

He also spoke about the funding winter in the Indian start-up ecosystem where late stage funding has significantly gone down. He agreed that valuations are getting balanced and adds, “People have become skeptical of valuations. They would not necessarily fixate themselves on the path to profitability.” Today, the scenario has changed. The focus on profitability is a lot more, he affirms.  

Apart from the fintech and the climate spaces, the brothers are excited about the proptech sector. And for this, Zerodha has partnered with construction equipment manufacturer, Puzzolana, to work together in the real estate technology segment through their venture, Gruhas.  

Zerodha which recently also announced its participation in the Green Start-up Pledge (GSP)is also slated to announce some climate-related initiatives in the coming times, Kamath revealed.  

The lay off debate 

The layoffs happening within the tech industry has taken the world by storm. The last few months saw prominent tech giants such as Meta, HP, Amazon, Google, and more announcing their decision to cut down jobs. In the start-up space, Ola, BYJU’S, Unacademy, Vedantu, and many others also laid off their workforce. 

Tech is making jobs redundant, said Kamath while sharing his views. He also said, “One thing that tech is doing is making the need to have as many employees a little redundant and this trend will continue.” He also said, “Tech will constantly evolve and more make jobs redundant.” 

Kamath gave the example of Twitter where redundancy is being talked about in a similar fashion. He echoes Tesla boss Elon Musk’s point who said that the most messed up thing at Twitter is that it has almost 10 people managing every single person who is coding. “All this is the work of tech,” he notes.
 

Also Read: 'Took the rose, but the thorns hurt': Millennials who lost jobs rue working with start-ups

Also Read: 'If I had Rs 100, I would invest in…': Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath reveals his investment preference