ViramShah

I'm Viram Shah, Co-Founder & CEO at Vested Finance. Ask me anything!

Hi Grapevine,

I'm Viram, currently building Vested Finance. I founded Vested in 2019 during my MBA at Haas, wanting to make global investing as easy and accessible for Indian investors as shopping online. Today, Vested empowers Indians to invest in global brands, theme-based ETFs, and custom portfolios known as Vests, all in a simple, affordable, and secure way.

Before launching Vested, I spent time in investment banking with J.P. Morgan and worked in fintech, analytics, and AI startups - experiences that ultimately shaped my vision for Vested. With an engineering background, an MBA, and SEC registration as an investment advisor, I landed in the world of international finance.

One quirky fact about me? I’m a big believer in parallel universes and the concept of rebirth! And here’s one bit about my name that never fails to come up when I meet someone new: "It’s Viram, not Vikram!”

Excited to talk about my journey, thoughts on global investing, and vision for Vested’s future. Whether you’re curious about international finance, doing your MBA abroad, or want to chat about startup life (or parallel universes!) – ask me anything!

I'll be back at 7 and begin answering :)

7d ago51K views

salt

Gojek7d

Hi @ViramShah

I’m @salt

Wanted to ask you two questions:

Would you recommend moving to the US, if one is really great at their craft?
Can you explain how Vested holds securities bought by me and what safeguards prevent asset illiquidity in the case of a hypothetical solvency issue of the holding company?

Asking because I want to understand things at a deeper level and you are a brilliant person to ask these questions to.

Be as brief or descriptive as you like. Thank you so much for having an AMA here.

ViramShah

Vested Finance6d

@salt Ah on 1, the answer really depends on a lot of factors, for e.g. what is the craft exactly or at what age or what kind of environments does the person like living in. Now if one is say a sommelier, I would say definitely can look at moving to the US because the opportunities in India are super limited. But, if you are looking for opportunities in technology or manufacturing then the next couple of decades in India will also bring a lot of opportunities so its not as straightforward an answer.

Other aspects to consider are - as a person do you want to be close to family and friends or do you like a more community-driven society (India) vs. a more individual-centric one (US). Are you ok letting go of the convenience in India for a higher quality of city life in the US.

For me personally, I always wanted to contribute to the India growth story and be close to family and friends. Hence the decision of moving back post the MBA. Because of Vested though I do get to stay in touch with developments in the US, which I like because no matter what is happening in the country, there is a lot to learn from it.

So, the US stock market unlike in India follows a custodian model wherein there's no NSDL/CDSL but instead a custodian that holds the shares in name of the broker (called 'in street name'). In our case the custodian is Citibank who holds trillions of $$. Drivewealth who is our clearing broker i.e. our interface with the custodian is regulated by FINRA. We as Vested are also an introducing broker registered with FINRA. So you are essentially interfacing only with regulated entities throughout. If everything in the chain fails, each account is insured by SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) up to $500,000. So that's the fallback in the worst case scenario. Hope that helps!

HomelyDie

Microsoft6d

So stocks are held with Drivewealth or CitiBank ?
Sorry I am noob, but if Drivewealth files bankruptcy, my stocks are still safe and I can sell them ?

ClassicNail

Quince6d

Why build in this space that's soooooooo highly regulated?

India regulations, US regulations, cross border regulations 💀

ViramShah

Vested Finance6d

@ClassicNail Didn't know there would be so many regulations when we started...Kidding. In abiding by regulation and still creating value lies the opportunity to build something unique :)

championswimmer

Viacom186d

Great seeing you here Viram. I was one of the early users of Vested (literally suggested by you on Twitter and then manually onboarded via WhatsApp help from you because my Aadhaar isn’t linked to phone)

Q1 What are your plans around improving the UX of the app - it sometimes doesn’t reliably go back from certain screens, the portfolio on homepage often freezes the app while it refreshes?

Q2 The portfolio graph has gone - why? I really liked seeing my portfolio grow with B/S events marked on it etc

DaringTrain

Stealth6d

Do I need my Aadhar to be linkedin to phone number to be on Vested? That's stupid. Hope there's another way as well. I have stopped taking domestic flights because of the same issue

ViramShah

Vested Finance6d

@championswimmer Arnav! Good to see you here as well. We are internally testing an overhaul of the UX, will reach out to add you to the beta. Would be great to get feedback. The overhaul is bringing back the portfolio graph too!

CuriousSaucy

Capgemini7d

How does Vested Finance defer from INDmoney while investing in US stocks? Less cost? Better UI/UX?

ViramShah

Vested Finance6d

@CuriousSaucy Hmm, our core business is providing Indians access to global assets and because of that there are some differences like we are directly regulated by US regulators, offer a less cluttered experience, customer service trained in depth on international investing, pre-built portfolios via Vests, OTC stocks, etc. You will also see more global asset classes on Vested very soon that will allow investors to build a more robust global portfolio

DaringTrain

Stealth7d

What happens to my US Portfolio / ETFs if I die? Will my nominee have to pay any inheritance tax?

Also, are you capped by RBI's limit on $$ portfolio ownership - The ones that prevented Mirae / MOSL ETFs from tracking the relevant underlyings correctly.

ViramShah

Vested Finance6d

@DaringTrain There is an inheritance tax if the holding is above $60k I think. We are looking to launch joint accounts soon that could help with this

On the RBI limit, nope that doesn't impact us since that's for domestic mutual funds. We operate under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme of the RBI which allows you to remit up to $250k per individual per year for various purposes like travel, education and investing

Discover more

Curated from across

Vaibhav_VardhanInc429mo

I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO of Inc42. Ask me anything!

Hey Everyone,

I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO at Inc42. We are India’s #1 startup media & intelligence platform that informs, educates and empowers startup leaders & operators through our incisive reporting and industry-leading ...

SajithPaiBlume Ventures2mo

I'm Sajith Pai, Partner at Blume Ventures. Ask me anything!

Hi Grapevine,

I'm Sajith, Partner at Blume Ventures, where I oversee consumer and India B2B investments.

I am a long-time media executive turned VC. After a two-decade-...

111K views

championswimmerViacom1811mo

I'm Arnav Gupta, Director of Engineering at Jio Cinema. Ask me anything!

Hi Grapevine,

I'm Arnav, Director of Engg at Jio Cinema. I previously exited my startup to Scaler. Some of you may know me from ScalerPod. I've also led engineering teams at Zomato & Target.

Here to chat with you about my journey...