Rainmatter, the venture funding arm of stockbroking firm Zerodha, has invested $ 2 million in PensionBox to expand its partnership through a joint venture in the digital pension space .
The Bengaluru based tech platform looks to distribute National Pension Scheme (NPS) products across both retail and corporate segments, with a focus on corporate retirement benefits.
Somnath Mukherjee, Vice President, Corporate Development at Zerodha, in a conversation with Outlook Business, said the investment fits into Rainmatter’s strategy of partnering with specialised founders to build a broader savings ecosystem beyond broking. He underlined how the stock-broking giant sees pensions as an important layer in long-term household savings, particularly as regulatory changes have made NPS more flexible.
3 February 2026
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Notably, NPS is tax free for employees up to 14% of basic pay or Rs. 7.5 lakh per year, whichever is lower without needing any contribution from the Employer's behalf. Further, pension regulator PFRDA made multiple changes in January 2026, allowing lower lock-in period of 15 years, easy partial withdrawals, and enabling loans against their investment.
“PFRDA is actively emulating the 401k system of the US in India,” Mukherjee added.
Currently, around 22,000 companies offer NPS benefits, compared with nearly 11 lakh firms that run provident fund programmes.
PensionBox founder and CEO Kuldeep Parashar said that he is focussing on building an end-to-end technology stack around NPS to simplify execution for employers, HR teams and finance departments.
The aim, he said, is to replace the current process, which often relies on paperwork, emails and spreadsheets, with an API-driven model that can integrate directly with payroll and HRMS systems.
Parashar further added that the company is focused on corporate NPS adoption in the private sector, where penetration remains limited.
Talking about the young employee demographic, Parashar pointed to a changing behaviour among GenZ workers as a longer-term driver for pension adoption. While people in their early 20s tend to be “more credit heavy”, he said, retirement saving habits typically begin to form in the late 20s as employees start thinking more seriously about long-term financial security.
He added that younger users are more likely to engage with pension products if the experience is comparable to consumer fintech apps rather than government-style portals.
The startup plans to expand into adjacent retirement products over time, including provident fund-related services, though its immediate focus remains on corporate NPS.
Zerodha, Mukherjee said, will work with PensionBox through both an investment and product partnership, including making NPS available through Coin on the retail side while supporting PensionBox’s corporate push.
