VeerTrade
Emerging markets at your fingertips
Introduction
Needful (Formerly Veertrade) is a fintech platform founded by MIT students—a mix of MBA candidates, undergraduate CS majors, and professionals with finance and consulting experience. Our mission is to empower foreign institutional and retail investors by making emerging markets more accessible, starting with India.
We believe India's economy today mirrors the trajectory of the U.S. and China several decades ago. By leveraging technology, deep market expertise, and relationships with local brokers and funds, we aim to bring India’s high-growth investment opportunities to foreign investors’ fingertips. Over time, we plan to expand beyond India and retail investors, providing seamless access to emerging markets, impact investing, and alternative asset classes worldwide.
Problem
Our extensive customer interviews suggest that the most significant pain point when it comes to investing in India is red tape. Indian expats find the paperwork involved with buying assets in India extremely dispiriting. Getting "OCI" or "Overseas Citizen of India" status (a requirement to invest in many cases) is almost hilariously cumbersome, with the government requiring countless documents and manual paperwork. Such processes are ripe for automation through AI.
Additionally, investing in private assets in emerging economies is much harder than in the US. There are regulatory hurdles, foreign exchange risks, liquidity problems, and a lack of reliable information. Yet, these are the very sectors of the world that need liquidity and a continuous flow of capital to keep momentum. Meanwhile, investors in the global north are looking for inspiration outside of the US capital markets. They want exposure to economies like India without dealing with regulatory hassles, geopolitical / currency uncertainties, and information assymetries.
Opportunity
Needful proposes to solve the above problems through a three-phased approach.
Phase One: A neat paperwork automation tool, with UI akin to TurboTax and other modern fintech platforms, that clearly outlines, autofills and submits paperwork on behalf of customers for a small fee. We believe this is a wonderful way to acquire customers and monetize at the same time.
Phase Two: That said, the above phase is a one-time revenue opportunity. Once we acquire customers through Phase One, we want to build on momentum to offer a simple investment discovery platform where users can browse alternative assets in emerging markets like India. Think Kickstarter but for emerging economies, with a focus on startups, VC/PE funds, real estate and other alternative assets.
Phase Three: As our platform matures, we want to expand beyond India to become the one-stop shop for all emerging markets compliance and investing access. Our secret sauce at this stage would be deep domain expertise for every region, secured through local teams and partnerships with local brokers and funds.