Nithin Kamath is founder and chief executive of Zerodha, the Bengaluru stockbroker that brought flat-fee discount broking to India. He bootstrapped it in 2010 with his brother after more than a decade as a trader, and the Kamath family still owns all of it.
Trading by Day, Calls by Night
He was born in Shivamogga, Karnataka, where his father was an executive at Canara Bank and his mother taught the veena. The family moved to Bangalore in 1996. He started trading at 17, first managing his father's account, and from 1997 he traded on his own. To supplement his income he worked nights at a call centre from 2001 to 2004 and traded during the day. He then spent six years as a sub-broker for Kamath Associates, a franchise of Reliance Money.
Zero Barriers
In August 2010 he and his brother Nikhil Kamath founded Zerodha, a name that joins "zero" with "rodha," the Sanskrit word for barrier. It charged a flat ₹20 per trade whatever the order size, against the percentage fees of traditional brokers. The model let it grow without heavy advertising or venture funding, and by 2020 it put its own valuation at about $1 billion. In the year to March 2025 its revenue was about $932M.
Rainmatter and the Regulators
In 2015 he founded Rainmatter, a fintech fund and incubator, and with Nikhil he co-founded the investment firm True Beacon. He serves on the SEBI Secondary Market Advisory Committee and its Market Data Advisory Committee.
He traded through the day and took calls at night to keep going. The broker he started with his brother now serves millions of Indian investors, and it has never needed an outside investor.
