Sharan Hegde, born July 15, 1995, in Mangalore, studied mechanical engineering, worked at KPMG and PwC, started Finance with Sharan on Instagram in 2021, dropped out of Columbia Business School in August 2022, co-founded The 1% Club with Raghav Gupta, reached ₹54.9 crore in FY25 revenue, secured India's first finfluencer SEBI RIA license, raised ₹10 crore from Nikhil Kamath's Gruhas, and has 5 million-plus followers across platforms.
Mechanical Engineering, KPMG, a Pandemic, and One Instagram Handle
- Born on July 15, 1995, in Mangalore, Sharan grew up in a business-oriented family where his father owned a restaurant, sparking his curiosity about cash flow from childhood. He pursued mechanical engineering at RV College of Engineering in Bengaluru, graduating around 2018, before beginning his corporate career as a strategy analyst at KPMG India, working on projects with banks and NBFCs. He later moved to PwC.
- The pandemic became the defining inflection point. With millions of young professionals suddenly confronting questions about savings, investments, insurance, and taxes without anywhere to turn, Sharan started his Instagram handle @financewithsharan in 2021, creating short, humorous, relatable videos that simplified personal finance using cosplay, pop culture references, and local Bengaluru lingo.
- He later secured admission to Columbia Business School for an MBA but dropped out in August 2022 to focus on his entrepreneurial and creator journey. The decision was deliberate and entirely consistent with the conviction that the opportunity in front of him was larger than any MBA could accelerate.
Comedy, Cosplay, 85,000 Members, and India's First Finfluencer SEBI RIA License
- The defining creative decision behind Finance with Sharan was to make financial education entertaining first and educational second. In a category dominated by serious jargon-heavy content, Sharan entered as Batman explaining mutual funds, as Harry Potter discussing insurance, and as characters from The Office breaking down credit scores.
- In 2022, he co-founded The 1% Club with Raghav Gupta, who is also co-founder and CEO at Futurense Technology. The 1% Club is a members-only financial education platform offering paid membership, masterclasses including a Retire Early Masterclass, tax planning strategies developed with CA professionals, and networking events. The community has onboarded 85,000-plus lifetime members.
- The 1% Club raised ₹10 crore in funding from Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath-backed VC firm Gruhas and Abhijeet Pai from the Puzzolana Group. Hegde confirmed that these external funds remain largely untouched and are invested in fixed deposits earning 8.5% interest, a transparency move that became one of the most talked-about moments in India's startup community.
- In February 2025, The 1% Club achieved a historic regulatory milestone: it became the first finfluencer-led entity in India to obtain a Registered Investment Adviser license from SEBI, following a six-month review process. The license enables the Personal CFO division, backed by a 40-member advisory team expanding across major cities, to provide one-on-one financial planning services including portfolio reviews, goal planning, and risk management under full regulatory oversight.
- "This marks the first time a fintech company associated with a finfluencer has registered with SEBI for an RIA license, setting a precedent in the wealth management industry," Sharan said.
- In 2025, he launched the podcast series 1 Hour with a Billionaire, featuring guests including Nikhil Kamath. He authored two books: Zero to Viral in 2023, a guide to building a million-follower creator brand, and Rise to the 1%, a personal finance playbook for financial independence. The 1% Club is now building toward fintech expansion, planning to launch fixed deposits, mutual fund baskets, bond investments, and crypto-based ETFs, targeting ₹30,000 crore AUM within two years.
- The 1% Club uses AI to reduce content production time and complete 70% of its app coding, enabling faster product rollouts. Following an AI-driven efficiency transformation, the team operates with a leaner, more technologically empowered structure across its 2,213 employees as of February 2026.
Scale and Real-World Impact
- The 1% Club generated ₹31.4 crore revenue in FY24 and ₹54.9 crore in FY25, with an annualised revenue of approximately ₹86.9 crore, representing 2.8X growth year-on-year. Net profit stood at ₹5.5 crore in FY24, a significant jump from ₹13 lakh the prior year, and the company targets a 25% EBITDA margin for FY25. The 1% Club has been profitable since inception. Sharan Hegde has 5 million-plus followers across platforms, with 3.54 million YouTube subscribers and 2.8 million Instagram followers, generating over 1 billion views. Sharan is a Forbes 30 Under 30 2023 honoree, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree, GQ Most Influential Person of the Year 2024, Economic Times Mega Influencer 2023, Forbes Top 100 Influencers 2022 and 2024, and Finance Influencer of the Year for 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 consecutively. Brand collaborations include Mastercard, PayTM, and Smallcase. He has made 3 angel investments including DUSQ in April 2025.
The Most Powerful Educators Are the Ones Who Make Learning Feel Like Entertainment
- The sharpest lesson from Sharan Hegde's journey is this: in a country where financial literacy has been systematically excluded from formal education, the creator who makes money feel like fun has an addressable audience of a billion people.
- Sharan did not build Finance with Sharan by being the most technically qualified finance person in the room. He built it by being the most relatable. He dressed as Batman. He made mutual funds funny. He turned a KPMG analyst's knowledge into content that a first-generation investor in Tier 2 India could understand and act on.
- He then built a community, obtained a regulatory license that no finfluencer in India had ever secured before, and is now building fintech products at the intersection of trust and technology.
- "If you want to stop feeling anxious and start feeling equipped to better your financial life, don't think twice, join The 1% Club," he says.
- He stood at his father's restaurant cash counter as a child and asked questions about money. He studied mechanical engineering. He consulted at KPMG and PwC. He got into Columbia and chose India instead. And he built a community of millions who finally understand the money they earn.
Sources: Inc42, Tracxn, YourStory, Indian Startup News, Entrepreneur India, Indian Startup News, LinkedIn, CityCaleb Biography, FameKeeda
