Nikhil Kamath, India's youngest billionaire, is the co-founder of Zerodha(an Indian Financial services company) and True Beacon. He is an entrepreneur, trader, and investor. The current daily turnover of his venture Zerodha is $10 billion, according to reports. The approximate net worth of Nikhil Kamath is speculated to be 7,1000 crores(as of 2020).
Nikhil Kamath was born on September 5, 1986, in Shimoga, Karnataka to Raghuram Kamath who is a retired employee of Canara Bank, and Revathi Kamath, an environmentalist and veena player. He attended school at Oxford Senior Secondary School in JP Nagar, Banglore but dropped out in class 10th because he didn't have any interest in studies. The only subject he was good at and took a little interest in was Mathematics. He took an active part in chess events during school time.
Nikhil in an interview with CNBC said, " Chess teaches you how to work under a structure in a system, but yet try to be creative within that system".
At the age of 14, he started a small business selling old/used phones. He had to shut that business because his mother felt he was too young to grow this way and do business.
After dropping out of school he started a job at a call center in evening shifts, wherein he was paid Rs. 8000 p/m as salary. In the mornings, he used to learn about stock trading. In 2004, Kamath left the job at the call center and along with his brother Nithin Kamath started the firm focused on Kamath Associates.
In 2010, Nikhil Kamath with his elder brother founded Zerodha which is India's no. 1 brokerage platform and trading community. The company is headquartered in Bangalore. The term Zerodha means Zero-Barrier. It is the largest retail stockbroker in India with an active client base of 5 million users, according to media reports.
The Unique Selling Point(USP) of the company is that it charges a very nominal fee of Rs.20 for every intraday trade.
Zerodha won the BSE-Dun & Bradstreet Emerging Equity Broking House award in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, the venture won the Bootstrap Champ award at the Economic Times Startup Award and NSE retail broker of the year in 2018. Nikhil Kamaths's company Zerodha also won the Startup of the year award in 2020 at the Economic Times Startup Awards.
In 2019, Nikhil Kamath started another asset management firm known to be True Beacon. The company is focused on creating an Alternative Investment Fund platform. In the first year of establishment, the company raised $2 million in the investment fund
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In 2021, Nikhil faced allegations of cheating in an online chess game conducted by chess.com. It was found that Nikhil used computer aid to defeat Vishwanathan Anand after which he apologized stating, "I had help from people analyzing the game, computers and the graciousness of Anand sir himself to treat the game as a learning experience. This was for fun and charity. In hindsight, it was quite silly as I didn't realize all the confusion that was caused due to this. Apologies"...
The total net worth of the Kamath brothers is $1.55 billion, according to media reports.
Nikhil Kamath is married to Seema Patil.
In an interview, he said his idol was Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
In his leisure time, Nikhil enjoys spending time with family, loves traveling, and doing adventurous sports.
