Problem

Paasa addresses the friction that prevents Indian investors from diversifying into global equities and dollar assets. Although India’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme permits substantial overseas remittances, the practical process involves paperwork-heavy brokerage onboarding, slow bank outflows, opaque fees, changing remittance rules, tax reporting, compliance risk, and limited trustworthy guidance. These barriers make global investing intimidating and historically leave access concentrated among the very wealthy who can afford private wealth managers or family offices.

The sharpest use case is Indian professionals and executives with US-company RSUs or other concentrated dollar exposure who want international diversification without creating a large US estate-tax liability. Paasa’s reported solution is particularly relevant to investors concerned that US-situs assets can face estate tax of up to 40%; for example, a $1 million US portfolio could create a potential $400,000 tax exposure. Buying comparable S&P 500 exposure through non-US-listed ETFs, such as London-listed funds, can address that specific concern while preserving global-market access.

Product / Service

Paasa is a digital wealth-management and cross-border investing platform delivered primarily through a mobile app, supported by WhatsApp and email for onboarding, reporting, analytics, and portfolio tracking. Users complete KYC, remit dollars through an RBI-compliant LRS flow from an Indian bank, and invest through Paasa’s connection to Interactive Brokers. The platform provides access to stocks and ETFs across US, UK, Swiss, Hong Kong, European, and Chinese markets, with more than 15,000 securities, three rule-based model portfolios, recurring investments, portfolio analytics, automated rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, and preparation of forms and filings such as W-8BEN, FATCA, and RBI documentation.

The service has a self-directed Access plan with no recurring account fee and an Apex plan that adds managed strategies, portfolio monitoring, rebalancing, FEMA and tax support, and guidance from its registered advisory setup. Paasa uses Interactive Brokers’ infrastructure for execution, custody, reporting, and compliance while concentrating its own value proposition on localization, advisory, tax efficiency, and user experience. This infrastructure-led model lowers the operational burden of building a global brokerage while giving customers a more guided alternative to a bare trading account; Apex pricing is asset-based, ranging from 1.0% to 0.5% plus GST across the published AUM tiers, while Access monetizes through brokerage on trades.

Market

Paasa competes in the intersection of cross-border digital wealth management, global brokerage, and investment advisory for Indian HNIs, “pre-HNIs,” family offices, institutional investors, and internationally minded professionals. Its competitive set includes Vested, INDmoney, and Kristal AI, with Tracxn also identifying Elever and Reliance Smart Money as alternatives. Interactive Brokers is both an adjacent alternative for sophisticated investors and Paasa’s underlying brokerage partner. Paasa’s differentiation is not simply market access: it combines global execution with Indian remittance and tax workflows, managed portfolios, estate-tax-aware product selection, and ongoing advisory.

The company appears post-launch rather than pre-product. A January 2026 YourStory report said Paasa served approximately 1,700 users and managed $19 million in total assets, including $6 million in advisory AUM and $13 million in trading and brokerage assets, with customers also in Dubai, Oman, and Thailand. Its business model consists of advisory fees on AUM plus transaction-based brokerage, but realized revenue is not clearly established in the available evidence. Funding figures also differ by source: YourStory reported $750,000 in initial funding, while a July 2026 Tracxn profile listed $500,000 across one seed round, so the funding amount should be treated as unresolved rather than definitive.