Zerodha was offered blank cheques last year: Founder-CEO Nithin Kamath

Kamath says the right way to value online brokerage is 15-20 times earnings which would peg the bootstrapped start-up's valuation at over $3 billion

Zerodha is an outlier among tech unicorns in the country as it has recorded 2.6X growth in net profit to Rs 1,122 crore in FY21 even as revenue grew 3X to Rs 2,728 crore – at a time when most other technology start-ups are far way off from profitability. Founder and CEO Nithin Kamath told Deepsekhar Choudhury in a conversation about defining choices that the company made in its early years, the perils of PE/VC funding for start-ups, and the road ahead for the company. Edited excerpts:

Looking back, what was the defining choice that has helped you cross this