Published: 22 September 2026
StartupFeed Quick Take
- Atul Parakh joined Bonanza Portfolio in November 2005 as an assistant manager in Indore
- Bigul, the group’s trading app, opened in 2022 and charges Rs 18 an order
- A June 2024 plan set 400 staff and 1 million clients. Headcount was 122 on June 30, 2026
Atul Parakh ran a wholesale garment business in Indore before he joined Bonanza Portfolio in November 2005 as an assistant manager.
Twenty years on, he is chief executive of Bigul, the group’s trading app. Bigul claims more than 4,00,000 clients. The target it set was 1 million.
Parakh’s LinkedIn profile lists each step. He was a partner at Ritesh Enterprises, a wholesale garment firm in Indore, from January 2004. He joined Bonanza 22 months later.
Atul Parakh Sold Garments Before He Sold Trading Accounts
Atul Parakh did not come out of a startup. He came up a broker’s branch network.
His first job at Bonanza was risk management and operations at the Madhya Pradesh regional office. He held it from November 2005 to September 2007.
He then ran Madhya Pradesh as assistant vice president and regional head for three and a half years. In April 2011 the group moved him to its property development business.
Parakh studied business administration at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya in Indore. He finished an MBA in finance in 2005. In July 2021 Bonanza put him in charge of its fintech arm, and Bigul opened to the public the next year.
That is 16 years inside one company before the app job. Most Indian broking founders of the last decade came the other way, from code to clients.
Parakh set Bigul’s growth number himself. He did it in a hiring announcement on June 10, 2024.
“building a customer base of over 1 million in the coming two years”
Atul Parakh, chief executive, Bigul. From the company’s hiring announcement, June 10, 2024.
Bigul Charges Rs 18 an Order and Keeps Bonanza’s Branches
Bigul is a discount broker sitting inside a full service one. Account opening is free. The first year of maintenance charge is free, and each order costs Rs 18.
The app sells more than plain equity. It carries algo strategy tools, stock baskets, a stock SIP, mutual funds, US stocks and an API product for developers.
All of it runs on Bonanza Portfolio Limited’s licences. The company is a member of NSE and BSE with SEBI registration number INZ000212137.
Bigul has said promoters hold all of its equity. It has raised no outside venture money. That marks it off from Angel One, which is listed, and from the app-first brokers built on fund raises.
One date on Bigul’s own pages is worth a second look. The company number in its footer, U65991DL1993PLC052280, shows the firm was registered in Delhi in 1993. Group material usually dates Bonanza to 1994.
Bigul works from Sanpada in Navi Mumbai. Bonanza’s registered office is still in Daryaganj, Delhi.
The 1 Million Target Is Still Far Away
The June 2024 announcement set two numbers. Bigul said it would go from 100 staff to 400 within three to six months. It also set 1 million clients within two years.
Neither has landed. Tracxn’s company profile lists 122 employees at Bigul on June 30, 2026. That is 22 more than the starting count, not 300 more.
The client number did move. Bigul claims more than 4,00,000 clients, which is 40% of the target it set. It lists more than 1,00,000 app downloads alongside that.
Those two figures sit together on the same page. Four lakh clients and one lakh downloads is a gap the company has not explained.
| Measure | Stated target or earlier figure | Latest figure |
|---|---|---|
| Bigul staff | 400 (plan, June 2024) | 122 (June 30, 2026) |
| Bigul clients | 1 million (target, June 2024) | 4,00,000 plus (company count) |
| Active trading accounts, NSE | 4.92 crore (March 2025) | 4.57 crore (March 2026) |
Fewer Indians Are Trading, Which Makes Growth Harder
India’s trading base shrank in the years Bigul needed it to grow. Active client accounts on the NSE fell about 7% in FY26. The count went from 4.92 crore in March 2025 to 4.57 crore in March 2026.
The big names lost share as well. Zerodha slipped to 15.08% from 16.03%. Angel One fell to 14.79% from 15.4%, and Upstox to 4.35% from 5.58%.
Bigul does not appear in that top group. A broker adding clients in a shrinking market is taking them from somebody else, one account at a time.
That is the test of the next two years. The branch network Parakh grew up in is the one thing app-first rivals cannot copy quickly. It is also a cost they do not carry.
What this means for you: If you trade through a small or mid-size broker, check its client numbers against NSE’s monthly broker data, not its website. Bigul charges Rs 18 an order, so compare that with your current broker’s per-order fee before you move.
StartupFeed Insight
Bigul is not a garage story. It is a 1993 broker trying to build a 2022 app with its own money, which is a slower and harder thing than it looks from outside. Atul Parakh spent 16 years learning the branch business before he was handed the app, and that shows in the product. The number to watch is not the client count on Bigul’s own pages. It is the active client count in the NSE’s monthly broker data. If Bigul has not entered the top 20 there by March 2027, the 1 million target moves from late to lapsed.
By Soumya Verma, Senior Correspondent
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