From Zerodha, Kotak to Muthoot: The businesses behind India’s new finance fortunes

India’s financial sector has become a major engine of wealth creation, with fortunes emerging across online broking, gold loans, banking, mortgage lending, digital payments and wealth management. As household savings move towards equity markets and more consumers access formal credit, a new group of finance entrepreneurs and established business families have built billion-dollar fortunes.

According to Bloomberg News, 15 individuals and families have amassed more than $65 billion in wealth solely from financial services. Seven of these fortunes are linked to the post-pandemic surge in retail credit demand and equity investing, while the remaining eight belong to veterans of India’s lending and capital markets. Financial firms now account for 25% of the 500 biggest companies on the National Stock Exchange.

Zerodha and Online broking

Nithin and Nikhil Kamath are among the biggest beneficiaries of India’s retail investing boom, with a combined net worth of $9.9 billion. The brothers founded Zerodha in 2010 after years of trading and working as sub-brokers.

At the time, India’s brokerage industry largely depended on branches, telephone calls, paperwork and third-party software. Zerodha used a low-cost model and technology to attract retail investors, with its client base increasing from 30,000 in 2013 to 800,000 in 2018. It now has more than 17.5 million clients.

Lalit Keshre, founder of Groww, has a net worth of $1.1 billion. Groww began by distributing mutual funds before expanding into stocks, exchange-traded funds, IPOs and futures and options. As of June 2026, it had 16.9 million active users and total assets of nearly $38 billion.

MUST READ: India’s top 3 biz families, Ambani, Birla and Jindal, are worth ₹42 lakh crore; Adani ranked in first-generation category: Hurun-Barclays

Gold loans, lending and big fortunes

Gold-backed lending has also produced some of India’s largest finance fortunes. George Alexander Muthoot and his family have a net worth of $9.9 billion. Muthoot Finance’s gold-loan business has quadrupled since 2020 to $18.5 billion as of June, while the company holds 210 tonnes of gold as security.

The Muthoot family entered gold loans in 1939, building on a business that had started in Kerala in 1887. The group has since diversified into mortgages, information technology, energy, real estate, education, healthcare and hospitality.

V.P. Nandakumar, whose net worth is $1.4 billion, similarly built Manappuram Finance around gold loans. The company has around three million customers and approximately $6 billion in gold-loan assets, with 63 tonnes of physical gold held as security. It has also expanded into microfinance, housing finance, business loans and vehicle finance.

Lending and banking

Ajay Piramal has a net worth of $4.4 billion, with Piramal Finance holding a loan book of more than $11 billion, mainly comprising retail mortgages, personal loans and small-business loans. The group’s alternatives arm manages $1.5 billion in private equity and debt investments.

Sanjay Agarwal, founder of AU Small Finance Bank, has a net worth of $1.9 billion. He began lending to small transport operators, entrepreneurs and borrowers in Rajasthan’s rural and semi-urban markets. AU later became the country’s largest small-finance bank, with a market value of $8.5 billion and more than 12 million customers.

ALSO READ: First-generation wealth: Why experts say financial boundaries with family are essential; AI weighs in

Digital lending and payments

Sachin Bansal has built a $3 billion fortune through Navi, which expanded from digital lending into payments, general insurance and asset management. Navi held more than $1.3 billion in loan assets and about $1 billion in mutual-fund assets in 2025-26.

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has a net worth of $1.2 billion. The platform benefited from the rapid adoption of digital payments following the 2016 withdrawal of high-value currency notes. Paytm had 80 million users and 50 million merchants as of June.

The boom, however, has also brought risks. Bloomberg News noted that retail investors are losing money on speculative trades, while rising household debt, partly driven by digital lending apps, is putting pressure on family finances.

Together, these businesses show the breadth of India’s financial transformation—from traditional gold-backed lending to app-based investing and digital credit—and how that transformation has translated into substantial private wealth.

ALSO READ: Tata leads, Reliance dominates, Adani expands: India's new corporate order, reveals Hurun India 500