Lemonn says over 30% of new deposit flows went into algos

More than 30% of the new money that came into Lemonn in June went into algo products, Lemonn's business head Devam Sardana told Fortune India in an interview, as the Bengaluru-based stockbroking platform looks to push beyond the traditional execution-only model.

The company has built five to six pre-defined algorithmic strategies for retail investors, instead of making users deal with the technical complexity of building their own systems.

“Instead of the complexity of APIs, tokens that scare away retail investors from using algos, we've abstracted away the complexity,” Sardana said.

Lemonn has its own in-house research analyst (RA) licence and has built what Sardana described as “five to six clean strategies” with clearly defined markers for users to choose from.

“We've built not 150, but five to six clean strategies to choose from with very clearly defined markers,” he said.

Moving beyond DIY investing

Sardana said Lemonn's broader product strategy is built around addressing two problems that investors commonly face—lack of capital and fear of losses.

The platform's Power SIP product, for instance, combines systematic investment plans (SIPs) with a margin trading facility (MTF). Under MTF, investors can put up part of the money needed to buy securities while the broker funds the rest for an interest charge.

Sardana gave the example of an investor putting ₹5,000 each into a gold ETF and a Nifty ETF and using leverage to invest ₹15,000 a month.

The product is designed to show users both the potential benefit of leverage and the cost involved, he said.

“What are you getting when you lever up? What is the cost you're paying? It essentially is a data-backed decision-making tool,” Sardana said.

Lemonn currently gets about 70% of its income from transaction-based revenue, primarily brokerage charges, while the remaining 30% comes from interest income. Sardana said the company has a “very healthy and substantial” MTF book.

Revenue up 800%

Lemonn, which launched in April 2024, saw its revenue from operations rise more than 800% year-on-year to ₹8.97 crore in May 2026, from ₹99 lakh a year earlier. Retail order volumes rose 9.08 times to 27.71 lakh during the month, while active retail traders increased 5.14 times to 24,309.

The sharp growth needs to be seen in the context of the platform's relatively young age and small initial revenue base. Sardana also acknowledged that the 800% growth came off a small base.

He said user acquisition was the biggest driver of growth, followed by higher activity among existing users and customers using more products on the platform. “A lot of this was part of the organic flywheel,” he said.

Lemonn added about 42,000–43,000 net active clients during the April-June quarter, taking its active investor base to 98,000 at the end of June, Sardana added.

From fully DIY to assisted execution

Lemonn's pitch is not to provide traditional relationship-manager-led investment advice, Sardana said. Instead, the company wants to give users tools and strategies while leaving the final decision with them.

“If you know what to buy, what to trade, you're platform agnostic,” he said. “But if you don't know, which is what majority of the users tend to be, then Lemonn is the platform to you, whether you're an investor or a trader.”

The platform offers curated algo strategies, custom indicators and F&O strategies and signals through its RA setup. It also shows users how strategies are performing and provides explanatory videos within the app.

“We've moved the spectrum away from fully DIY to probably 80–90% assisted execution,” Sardana said.

He clarified that this does not mean the platform directly tells users what to buy.

“We're not saying fully, ‘Oh no, you buy this.’ It's not like this is the call and an RM will call you that you have to buy this,” he said.

Sardana said Lemonn believes pure execution-only platforms could find it harder to differentiate over the coming decade.

“We feel that pure execution-only platforms will find it difficult in the next decade or so,” he said.

Marketing shifts to digital

Lemonn had a ₹100 crore marketing budget in its first year, with spending initially focused on building awareness through television campaigns, offline events and its association with the World Cup.

Sardana said the strategy has since shifted towards performance and digital marketing, including platforms such as Meta and Google, as the brand has become better known among its target audience.

“It is a horses-for-courses approach,” he said.

The company had also experimented with subscription plans for brokerage, but Sardana said there were no immediate plans to introduce a subscription model.

“A subscription kind of a model will work best when you're able to add value beyond transaction income,” he said.

More products, but no “me-too” bets

Lemonn plans to deepen its presence in equities, derivatives, ETFs and IPOs while also expanding into other asset classes, including fixed income and commodities. Sardana said some other products were under consideration but could not yet be disclosed.

The platform has already moved beyond its initial equity offering into mutual funds, IPOs and derivatives.

Sardana said the company is also looking at products such as fixed deposits, although the timing will depend on its internal roadmap and constraints. On fractional investing, he said regulatory, technology and counterparty considerations meant it could still take time before the model becomes viable in India.

A Varsity-like education platform is also being considered, although Sardana said it remains an idea at this stage.

“It’s a thought and it’s an idea at this point of time,” he said. Lemonn would enter the space only if it can add something beyond existing offerings.

“This is a heavily competitive space. There's no space for me-too products,” Sardana said

Lemonn began with zero brokerage for its first three months and subsequently extended the offer to almost the end of its first year across its products. It now relies on transaction and interest income for monetisation.

The company is currently internally funded within the PeepalCo group, Sardana said, adding that it could look at external fundraising when the time comes. PeepalCo identifies NU Investors Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates Lemonn, as one of its subsidiaries.