Otto Money, an AI-powered wealth guidance platform, has announced that it has raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Pravega Ventures. The round marks Otto Money’s first institutional capital and will support the company’s mission to bring unbiased, data-driven financial guidance to Indian investors navigating an increasingly complex investment landscape.

The round also saw participation from a group of prominent angel investors, including Rishi Kohli, CIO at Jio BlackRock AMC, Amit Gupta, Founder of InMobi and Yulu, Amit Agarwal, Founder of NoBroker, and Mohit Aron, Founder of Nutanix and Cohesity. Several existing backers also participated in the round, reflecting continued confidence in the company’s product vision and long-term approach to wealth guidance.

The fresh capital will be deployed over the next 12 to 18 months in strengthening its AI models, enhancing personalization, and expanding its goal-based guidance capabilities. The company will also focus on go-to-market initiatives in Tier 1 cities, including partnerships and brand-building efforts designed to establish long-term trust. A significant portion of the funding will go toward hiring across engineering, data science, and product to build a strong foundation for scale.

Otto Money was founded in 2025 by IIT alumni Apurv Gupta and Ankur Lahoti, whose careers span building some of the world’s most trusted, large-scale data platforms.

Apurv Gupta is the former CTO of Cohesity, the data security and management company valued at over $7 billion, where he led global engineering teams building enterprise-grade, highly secure data platforms used by large institutions worldwide. A two-time entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience, Apurv brings deep expertise in data integrity, security, and systems built for massive scale in modern fintech.

Ankur Lahoti previously served as Director of Engineering at Google, where he spent over two decades designing and operating internet-scale systems with a strong focus on reliability, performance, and privacy. Together, the founders bring a rare combination of deep AI, data infrastructure, and security-first engineering to consumer wealth management.

Otto Money differentiates itself by using institution-grade investment models and AI to deliver holistic, multi-asset guidance that explains trade-offs, highlights risks, and aligns decisions with long-term financial aspirations without pushing specific products.

“Indian investors today have access to more financial products than ever before, but clarity hasn’t scaled at the same pace. Otto Money is built to address that gap, using AI to help investors understand their choices, manage risk consciously, and stay aligned with long-term goals rather than short-term noise,” said Apurv Gupta, Co-founder of Otto Money.

Otto Money operates at the intersection of fintech, wealth management, and artificial intelligence, serving digitally savvy Indian investors.

India’s wealth and investment management market represents a multi-billion-dollar opportunity, driven by rising disposable incomes, growing equity participation, and rapid adoption of SIPs and self-directed investing. At the same time access to truly unbiased financial guidance remains limited leaving investors unsure of their DIY investment decisions.

Otto Money tackles issues like information asymmetry, conflicted advice, poor multi-asset view, and decision fatigue during market swings. As an AI decision layer, the platform helps investors shift from reactive to disciplined, goal-focused wealth building.

Also Read: C2i Semiconductors Raises $15M in Funding Led by Peak XV

“At Pravega, we back founders who pair deep technical depth with absolute clarity of problem.Apurv and Ankur embody that engineering DNA in the way Otto is built. We didn't just invest in another fintech app, but in a proprietary intelligence layer. While most of the industry is still pushing products, Otto is using AI to give Indian investors something much rarer with an institutional-grade clarity. This isn't just about better advice but about reshaping the relationship between people and their money,” said Rohit Jain, Partner at Pravega Ventures.

Otto Money is currently in early market deployment and is seeing active engagement from digitally native investors. Over two to three years, it aims to enhance AI guidance, broaden investment scenario coverage, and expand in major Indian metros. It plans strategic partnerships within the financial ecosystem and to build a transparent, compliant platform supporting investors through various life stages and market cycles, focusing on long-term trust.