We left the AUM race.
This is why.
CurateMyMoney was started in Chennai by people who spent years inside India’s mutual fund industry, and couldn’t keep doing it the way it was being done.
The meeting we kept having
Picture a meeting room. A senior executive from a fund house sits across from a team of distributors. The agenda isn’t fund performance, or whether the schemes suit anyone, or investor returns. The agenda is volume.
“If your team brings us X crores in this scheme by quarter end, here’s the additional payout structure.”
These meetings happened. They still happen. They’re legal, and they’re rarely talked about in public, because everyone in the room benefits — except the investor at home who never knew the meeting took place.
We were in some of those rooms.
What we saw, and couldn’t unsee
India’s mutual fund distribution industry isn’t full of bad people. It’s full of good people working inside a system that points every incentive in the wrong direction.
The system rewards AUM — total assets under management — above everything else. It rewards bringing in new money, not keeping clients well served. It rewards the products that pay the highest commission, not the ones that fit the investor’s need.
And because most investors don’t know how commissions work, the advice they get is quietly shaped by payout tables they never see.
Same question, two answers
A client says: “I have ₹5 lakhs sitting idle for six months. I’m buying a car after that.”
The honest answer
A liquid fund. Safe, easy to withdraw, and a little better than a savings account.
What the distributor earns: about ₹250 on ₹5 lakhs over six months.
The profitable answer
An equity fund — or better still, an ELSS with a three-year lock-in.
What the distributor earns: many times more, every year. And once the ELSS is locked in, the client can’t leave for three years, even after realising the mistake.
We watched the second answer given again and again. Not as a one-off. As a pattern.
The other problem: nothing was personal
Large platforms serve hundreds of thousands of investors. To manage that scale, they build buckets. Thirty years old? Here’s the thirty-year-old portfolio. Retiring soon? Here’s the retiree allocation.
But inside every bucket, people are different. A 30-year-old running a business needs money on a completely different timetable from a 30-year-old on a salary. A retiree with a working son has different needs from one supporting a spouse and elderly parents.
One-size-fits-all isn’t advice. It’s manufacturing.
curate
/kyʊəˈreɪt/ verb
To select carefully, with judgement, for a specific purpose.
Why we chose the name
We wanted to run a distribution business the way it should be run, where one question drives every recommendation: what does this person actually need?
Not what pays more. Not what fills a fund house’s quota. Not what gets us onto the next “top distributor” list. Curating means choosing, from everything available, what fits you — not manufacturing a portfolio and pushing it.
In five years, not one family has left us.
We chose to stay small. We can’t offer the self-service scale of Groww or Kuvera, and we don’t want to. With 400 families and ₹100 crores entrusted to us, every relationship is known personally, every recommendation is individual, and every review is a real conversation.
We’ll never manage ₹10,000 crores. What we will do is make sure every family who comes to us stays — not because switching is a hassle, but because they trust we’re working for them. That’s the only number we really care about.
The people you’ll talk to
A small team, on purpose. You’ll know every one of us by name.
Ram
Founder and Chief Investment Officer
More than 21 years in personal finance and mutual funds, including heading mutual funds at FundsIndia, one of India’s first large online investment platforms. MBA and CFP. He left the organised distribution world to build a firm that didn’t ask him to compromise on objective, life-stage-based planning.
Maalathi
Senior Financial Analyst
More than 10 years in financial analysis, portfolio management and investment research, with a Master’s in Computer Science. She turns market data into analysis for each client’s portfolio, runs the ongoing performance reviews, and keeps the research behind every recommendation current.
Swetha
Senior Research Analyst
Deep experience in market research, fund analysis and investment strategy. She works with Ram to evaluate funds and market trends, so that every recommendation holds up to scrutiny — on the day you invest and at every review after.
We won’t be right for everyone.
If you want an app where an algorithm handles ₹500 a month, there are good options, and we’ll happily tell you which. If you want people who know your family’s finances and will tell you when you’re about to do something unwise, that’s us.
CurateMyMoney is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor (ARN-184811). Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme-related documents carefully.