1% Club Launches AI CFO to Offer Personalised Financial Guidance

Finance creator Sharan Hegde’s 1% Club has launched an AI-powered financial assistant called AI CFO, expanding the platform from financial education into a broader technology-led personal finance offering.

The tool is designed to provide personalised financial guidance based on a user’s broader financial position. According to the company, it analyses information such as cash flow, net worth, investment portfolio and holdings, and combines this data with 1% Club’s research to generate financial insights without requiring users to manually enter their financial details.

Users can ask the AI CFO questions related to both immediate and longer-term financial decisions. For example, the platform can assess whether a user can afford to purchase a car the following year or determine how much they may need to save each month for a planned trip. Based on the user’s financial position, it can suggest changes to spending or savings.

The tool also reviews investment portfolios across eight parameters, including returns, fund quality, benchmark performance, asset allocation, concentration, portfolio overlap, costs and tax position. It also provides news and insights related to users’ mutual fund and stock holdings.

According to Sharan Hegde, the product is intended to address a gap between learning about personal finance and making decisions with one’s own money. He said the company wanted to build a system that could understand an individual’s financial context rather than provide generic financial information.

Raghav Gupta, co-founder of 1% Club, said the company sees a gap between the growing number of financial products available to consumers and the availability of personalised financial guidance. According to Gupta, the AI CFO is intended to use a user’s broader financial context to help them navigate decisions involving their money.

The launch marks a shift in 1% Club’s business from its original focus on financial education towards an AI-first personal finance platform. The company now brings together financial education, investment tracking, spending, savings, insurance and financial planning through its platform.

The company said its education ecosystem has reached nearly one million learners over the past three years and that it has generated more than ₹150 crore in revenue during the same period.

1% Club was founded by Sharan Hegde and co-founded by Raghav Gupta. In 2023, the company raised ₹10 crore in a pre-Series A funding round from Gruhas, the venture platform co-founded by Nikhil Kamath and Abhijeet Pai.

Since that funding round, the company has expanded into wealth management and other personal finance services. According to recent company and media disclosures, 1% Club has approximately ₹2,000 crore in assets under advisory, while more than $500 million, or over ₹4,000 crore, in client assets are tracked on its platform. These are separate measures and should not be treated as the same pool of assets.

The AI CFO is being introduced as part of this broader expansion, with the company positioning it as a financial co-pilot capable of considering multiple aspects of a user’s financial life instead of evaluating individual investments or expenses in isolation. Its current product positioning covers investments, spending, insurance, savings and financial goals.