We’re excited to announce that PrimeInvestor has raised funding from Rainmatter Capital, the investment arm of Zerodha, to scale our Portfolio Management Services. This marks a new chapter in our journey — and we want to share with you exactly what this means and where we’re headed.
From Research to Portfolio Management
PrimeInvestor started in January 2020 with a single conviction: that Indian investors deserve unbiased, high-quality research to help them make better financial decisions. Over the past five years, 50,000+ users have trusted our platform for mutual fund ratings, stock analysis, ETF recommendations, and DIY tools. We’ve reviewed and guided portfolios worth over Rs 25,000 crore.
But somewhere along the way, we noticed a pattern in the questions our users were asking. It wasn’t just “what should I invest in?” It was “how do I build a portfolio?” and “how do I size my allocations?” and “how do I align all of this with my actual situation?” Recommendations alone, without accompanied execution and ongoing management, delivered only partial value. The more we listened, the clearer it became: the next step was managing portfolios directly, not just recommending good investments.
Our review tools also showed us where investor portfolios have gaps – too many funds or stocks that led to diffused holdings, high exposure to a few categories or sectors, high risks, hidden costs and more. And as portfolios scale past ₹50 lakh and ₹1 crore, and wealth accumulates, the complexity of managing that wealth simply expands, requiring more tailored professional services.
That’s how PrimeInvestor PMS was born.
A PMS Built Differently
PMS is most associated with stock portfolios, high risk, and fees structured around performance sharing. We’ve built something quite different.
The first thing is that we’re multi-asset, multi-product. Most traditional PMS products focus only on equities — a single asset class, a single product type, aimed squarely at investors with the highest risk appetites. That’s a legitimate offering, but it doesn’t fully reflect how most investors invest. Real portfolios have mutual funds, stocks, ETFs, bonds, and gold. Real investors have a range of goals, timelines, and comfort with risk.
We therefore made PrimeInvestor PMS multi-asset and multi-product by design. We offer three distinct strategies: Prime Vision, an MF and ETF-only strategy in three risk variants (Balanced, Growth, Ultra); Prime Synergy, a dynamic blend of direct mutual funds and stocks; and Prime Velocity, a pure equity compounding strategy for investors with long horizons and high risk appetite. We have plans to expand further — with debt-only portfolios, income+growth combinations, and more — making us far more holistic than what a PMS would typically be.
Think of PrimeInvestor less as a traditional PMS and more as a wealth management solution operating within a PMS framework.
The second thing we’ve built differently is our approach to risk. We believe downside protection is an important facet of wealth creation — a portfolio that falls 20% needs 25% gain just to recover. Every strategy we run is constructed to contain losses as seriously as it chases returns. We blend stability with high-return opportunities so our portfolios are neither too conservative nor too aggressive. We’re building for long-term compounding, not short-term narratives.
Third, our research process. The three principals behind PrimeInvestor — Vidya Bala, Aarati Krishnan, and Bhavana Acharya — bring nearly six decades of combined market experience. Our stock and mutual fund selection methodology has been built through this collective wisdom. No single fund manager carries undue bias or makes unchecked calls. The process governs outcomes, not personalities.
Fourth and most importantly, our fees. We charge a flat annual management fee that is among the most competitive in the industry. No profit sharing. Only direct plans of mutual funds with no commission. We believe investor wealth is theirs to keep. As their wealth compounds, our fee also moves alongside so do we — which means our incentives are fully aligned with investors and not with generating short-term activity.
Why Now, and Why Rainmatter
We have been a bootstrapped company since day one — a team of just eight people running a full-scale research and recommendations operation. That leanness has been a point of pride. But scaling a PMS is a different challenge.
Technology is at the heart of what we want to build next. Onboarding new clients, enabling portfolio customisation for individual situations, and building the kind of client experience we envision — all of this requires meaningful investments. We also need to grow our team to match the demands of managing client portfolios with the rigour and care they deserve.
Rainmatter has a deep understanding of what it means to build in the Indian financial services space — not just capital markets, but the infrastructure layer that makes investing more accessible and more honest. That alignment of values made this the right partnership for us. We’re grateful to Rainmatter for believing in what we’re building, and for giving us the resources to do it at scale.
What Comes Next
The funding will go toward three things: technology for seamless onboarding and portfolio management, team expansion to support growing client needs, and new product development to address the full spectrum of investor goals.
We’re building PrimeInvestor PMS to be the kind of wealth manager we always wished existed — one that is research-driven, risk-aware, cost-transparent, and genuinely aligned with investor outcomes. One that treats your wealth as something to be compounded carefully over time, not maximised at any cost.
We’re just getting started. If you’d like to learn more or explore whether our strategies are right for you, write to us at [email protected], or visit us at PrimeInvestor.
