Zerodha on Wednesday announced shutting down of operations at its new-age media network, Zero1, citing regulatory uncertainty around the entire initiative.

The financial media network, which was being built in collaboration with LearnApp and launched in October 2023, was positioned as an education-focused venture that engaged storytellers and content creators across themes such as finance, health and climate.

Zerodha explained that it was an experimental initiative that ran for over a year and saw strong traction. "However, there was lot of regulatory uncertainty around the entire initiative and we took a call to wind this down," Zerodha said.

Going ahead, Zerodha said its strategy would be to run and own all content channels in-house. "We already run a slew of channels and will continue to expand these channels, the only difference is that we will have full control on the content that is put out. We focus mostly around financial education and would like to keep it that way," it stated.

Who are they

Zero1's seed idea started as a conversation between Prateek Singh and Swati Sharma of LearnApp and Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath in 2020, according to its website.

The platform was formally launched in October 2023 as a joint venture (JV) between LearnApp and Zerodha, combining LearnApp's content-led education approach with Zerodha's expertise in financial markets.

What they do

As per the website, the platform described itself as "a new age media network that demystifies money through data-backed storytelling."

It aimed to build a content ecosystem around money and wealth without relying on advertisements or sponsorships. "What if we could build a channel around money and wealth and never take advertisements/sponsorships. It'll be built in LearnApp style - storytelling with high production value, backed by data. Since advertisers don’t dictate our content we will always build what this generation needs and not what it needs to be sold," the website further stated.

At present, Zerodha operates multiple content and education channels including Varsity (YouTube and Instagram, including Hindi), Rainmatter, Zerodha Online, and several thematic platforms such as Markets by Zerodha (and its Hindi version), In the Money, and Climate Brief, among others.