Alternative investment platform Jiraaf raises $7.5 million funding from Accel and others

The round also saw participation from several angel investors including Capital A; Sidharth Shah, founder of Pharmeasy; Ramakant Sharma, cofounder of Livspace; Anuj Jhaveri, director at Barclays, Hong Kong; and Shantanu Garg, managing director and partner at

Consulting Group.

The startup plans to use the funds to build its team for sourcing high-quality opportunities and strengthening its customer service.

Founded in 2021 by finance professionals Saurav Ghosh and Vineet Agarwal, Jiraaf is a platform for high-yield alternative investment opportunities. It aims to help individual investors earn better returns by participating in high-quality opportunities that go beyond equities, fixed deposits, real estate and gold.

“Over the last eight months, we have originated opportunities worth over Rs 250 crore and have more than 10,000 registered investors… We are looking to achieve a transaction volume of Rs 1,000 crore by this year-end and an investor base of 100,000,” said cofounder Agarwal.

Jiraaf offers high-yield, non-market linked investment opportunities, claiming yields in the range of 8% and 20% and tenures of 30 days to three years.

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“There is a very strong demand for alternative fixed-income products among retail investors. India has nearly $2 trillion invested in fixed deposits and the mutual fund industry is at $0.5 trillion [after] 3x growth in the last five years,” said Bharat Shankar Subramanian, partner at Partners.

The company addresses a large market gap by offering diversified fixed-income products that can form a meaningful part of every investor’s portfolio over the next decade, especially in the current and forecasted macroeconomic scenario, Subramanian added.

Jiraaf competes with the likes of Per Annum, GoldenPi and Dzerv in India.