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The Collection Wed, 09 Jul 25 |
Multiple stories, multiple perspectives, one theme worth your time—every week. |
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India’s uber-rich are growing more numerous. As of last July, India had 334 billionaires, 75 more than the previous year, per Hurun India. Of all the wealth created between them, first-generation wealth creators were responsible for over 55%.
But people who have inherited multi-generational wealth—old money—haven’t just been sitting still. Many have spent the past several years breaking out of decades-old investment traditions and family-centric conventions to put new opportunities to work.
Already in India, where around 900 high-net-worth individuals are on the cusp of transferring intergenerational wealth worth nearly $1.5 trillion, family investment offices are booming. Their number reached 300 in 2024 from just 45 in 2018, with an increasing number of business families becoming more conscious of the need for professional wealth management. And in another departure from tradition, only 7% of heirs belonging to such families feel an obligation to join their family businesses, according to a May 2025 HSBC report.
In this week’s The Collection, we explore stories about how India’s generationally affluent are preserving and multiplying their wealth in new ways, why many scions are moving away from traditional investment practices, and the evolving role of wealth managers who try their best to keep them happy.
Wealthy Indian families aren’t just limited to financial hotspots like Mumbai or New Delhi, which becomes pretty obvious from the number of family offices mushrooming in tier-2 and tier-3 cities such as Surat and Nagpur. And many of them are wagering on riskier bets than their predecessors may have been comfortable with, like venture capital and hedge funds.
While their fathers and grandfathers preferred traditional assets like gold and real estate, the younger members are eager to explore new options. For example, 3 Peak Ventures invests 90% of its capital in equity and the rest in gold and silver, while Dholakia Ventures focuses entirely on pre-seed and seed-stage companies.
“Earlier, we used to be wary of riskier asset classes like hedge funds. But today, we are as comfortable with hedge funds as we could ever be,” said Poddar.
Why these scions are ditching their families’ decades-old investing style
In fact, many family offices—impatient with having to deal with venture capitalists—are even starting to cut out the middle man and going straight to the startups themselves.
But that’s the point of having an “office”: control. No limited partners (LPs), no mandates, no 10-year clocks. “A family office can evaluate and decide what to invest in, where to invest. So they can take their own calls depending on their own risk appetite and understanding,” said Siddhartha Saraf, CIO at Manyavar’s family office.”
Which means they can do the thing that VCs claim to do—move fast and break term sheets—but without the pressure of limited partners breathing down their necks.
[…]
“We expect 15–18% from VC funds,” said Khanna of Capri Global. “But we target 25–30% internal rate of return (IRR) from our direct portfolio.” Capri, which has a five-member team, has flipped its allocation in three years—85% of its capital is now invested directly, up from 15%.
There’s a lot more to it, as my colleague Nuha Bubere reported in May 2025.
Family offices love to hate venture capitalists
Tired of fees, lock-ins, and mediocre returns, family offices are cutting out middlemen and going straight to the cap table. Startups get patient capital. Families get control. VCs get nervous
Some old-money scions aren’t just stopping at investing in startups either, they are choosing to start their own in entirely new business areas, building new brands by putting certain legacy advantages to work.
Inheritor turns founder: Go Zero, Kapiva defy family-business convention
The trick is to combine the advantages of legacy with the agility of a new-age brand
And how the men among them manage their wealth is quite different from how women do it, as Soumya Rajan, founder of Waterfield Advisors, talks about in this special episode of Daybreak.
Daybreak • 500 |
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All this is also resulting in an expansion in adjacent industries focused on serving the needs of the rich.
For one thing, old-money families are starting to turn that newfound admiration for professional management inward too.
Enter: succession coaches, who plan and advise on inheritance and wealth transfers from one generation to the next. At least six such coaches The Ken spoke to believe that many family businesses don’t survive beyond the fourth generation because the families don’t open themselves up to external management. Some are finally starting to lose such inhibitions, though.
How do these new gurus work? And what exactly do they do? We explored in the story below.
The succession coaches standing between India's super-rick and their ruin
They navigate traditional mindsets, internal conflicts, and power plays to keep India’s elite family businesses from imploding
Others have seized other opportunities.
Such as Hurun, and the wealth managers it has embraced.
How Hurun India and wealth managers turned 'rich lists' into a virtuous cycle
Hurun wants to go where Forbes and Bloomberg couldn’t
And of course, if you are a wealth manager these days, your job goes far beyond just managing the finances of your clients. You may find yourself having to arrange a lunch with a tennis legend or securing a coveted seat at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting, just so your client can meet Warren Buffet.
In this October 2024 story, the last one in our collection this week, we explore how wealth managers are delivering on such extraordinary requests.
Lunch with Federer, Rs 70 lakh watch: wealth managers find new ways to delight the ultra-rich
Advising India's fast-growing moneyed class on investments is increasingly tied to the ability to handle a variety of client requests
As always, if you have any feedback, thoughts, or suggestions, write to me at [email protected] or leave a comment on our website or app.
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Rahul leads the promotion and distribution efforts for the journalism produced by The Ken. He works at the intersection of the publication's editorial and business operations.
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