On August 10, Jupiter, a new banking platform backed by Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, announced its foray into investing, starting with penalty-free SIP direct mutual funds.

Customers who invest through the platform will not be charged any penalty if the automatic debit authorisation fails. The bank usually charges a penalty of Rs 250 to 750 each time a SIP automatic debit authorization fails due to insufficient bank balance.

Jupiter said its platform will automatically skip any such fees. If the user’s Jupiter bank balance is insufficient, their SIP authorisation is automatically skipped.

In the past 10 days, Jupiter said it has recruited about 25,000 people to invest in direct mutual funds.

Founded in 2019 by Jitendra Gupta, Jupiter is a digital banking platform that provides users with a digital interface to open a bank account and provides Visa debit and customer spend insights, with Federal Bank and Axis Bank as backend banking partners.

Users can set up SIP with just one touch. If users want to skip the current month’s SIP payment or cancel the SIP altogether, it can also be done with a swipe, the startup said.

It added that because Jupiter does not charge commissions, users can save up to 1.5% per year, which would otherwise be paid out as commissions for regular mutual funds.

The feature is currently available to those who already have mutual fund investment accounts. In a few weeks, everyone who is completely new to mutual fund investing will also be able to open their investment accounts on Jupiter.

Jupiter last raised $86 million in a Series C round in December 2021 at a valuation of $710 million, with other existing investors including QED Investors, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, 3one4 Capital and BEENEXT.

Jupiter is Gupta’s second startup after CitrusPay, which he sold to Naspers-owned PayU for $130 million in 2016 and was recorded as one of the biggest exits in the Indian fintech services ecosystem at the time.