Reverse Flip: Groww Moves Domicile From The USA To India 

Finance start-up Groww has moved its domicile back to India from the United States. There has been an increasing trend for the start-up community to move their domicile back to India. 

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), co-founder and chief executive, Lalit Keshre, wrote, “As of March 2024, Groww has completed its domicile transition back to India. For our customers, we have always been an India-based organization for all practical purposes since day 1. With this update, the Groww group and its subsidiaries are completely based in India.” 

The amount of tax charges Groww had to pay for the merger of Groww Inc., its US holding company, with Billionbrains Garage Ventures, an Indian corporation, is still unknown. 

Groww has been profitable for a number of years; its investors include YC, Peak XV Partners, and Tiger Global. Official data indicates that its flagship app is the most widely used stockbroking service in the nation. By the end of September 2023, Groww had 6.63 million active investors, according to data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE). 

Read: Start-Ups Looking To Come Back To India Should Pay Tax: Union Minister Piyush Goyal

Pine Labs and Zepto are some of the other start-ups that are trying to move back to India. Pine Labs is trying to seek approval from the National Company Law Tribunal as well as authorities in Singapore for a cross-border merger of its Singapore-based company with its India operations, as per a report by the Economic Times. Zepto is also in the process of filing a similar application. Further, to meet the additional tax payout on returning to India, Meesho is also trying to raise funds, according to the report. 

One of the start-ups that shifted its domicile to India from Singapore was Walmart-owned PhonePe. Walmart paid almost $1 billion in taxes to the government for the same. 

The Indian government has been pushing local businesses to establish themselves in the IFSC GIFT City, redomicile (also known as "reverse flip") to India, and take advantage of global market prospects. To encourage startups that have flipped overseas to relocate to the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Gujarat International Finance Technology City (GIFT City), an expert committee submitted recommendations to the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) in August 2023. The recommendations covered thirty measures in a variety of domains, including taxation, infrastructure, company law, dispute resolution, etc.