Pooja Malik: Recovering your assets
Pooja Malik and Neha Jain's EquiTracers are finding recognition in the unglamorous but growing and vital IEPF space to help people recover their unclaimed assets
Last Updated: Jan 19, 2026, 14:28 IST2 min
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Pooja Malik (28)
Founder & CEO, EquiTracers
India’s financial world is crowded with ventures by young entrepreneurs in the wealth tech, co-lending of credit cards, retail and payment gateways space. But there are some that are not trendy or blazing. EquiTracers Wealth Advisors, with Founder Pooja Malik and Co-founder Neha Jain, stands out as a distinctive venture: An asset recovery firm that helps individuals and families recover their unclaimed investments.
It is one of the more prominent startups in the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) space, which specialises in tracking forgotten bank deposits, equity shares, dividends and other financial assets, tracing rightful heirs, and ensuring the recovery process is smooth and transparent.
In the years gone by, investors in capital markets have struggled with transfer delays of physical shares due to problems linked to loss of documents, signature mismatch, delay in updating addresses and name changes. It has resulted in numerous cases where families have not been able to secure refunds of shares, dividends or matured deposits and debentures.
View full list: Forbes India 30 Under 30 2026: Meet our young groundbreakers and trendsetters
Data from the IEPF Authority estimates that the total amount of unclaimed shares and dividends is ₹1.84 lakh crore. In India, any unclaimed dividend amount or shares for which dividends have not been paid or claimed for seven years will be transferred by the company to the IEPF. Investors can recover these funds by filing a claim with the IEPFA, but invariably corporates have not been too proactive in helping individuals recover assets.
“This is where we come in. We help people recover their monies from the corporates,” Malik tells Forbes India. EquiTracers now has over 100-plus clients, mostly high net worth individuals and non-resident Indians. The company earned ₹50 lakh in revenues in FY25.
Income for the company is through fees, usually a percentage of the market value of shares recovered. EquiTracers does not charge fees until the amounts are fully recovered, Malik adds.
Malik focusses on client acquisition while her partner Jain focuses on claims, documentation and fees. “We have been adding 10 clients each month,” Malik says.
Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman announced the launch of the ‘Apki Poonji, Apka Adhikar (Your Money, Your Right)’ campaign in October 2025 to help citizens reclaim these funds via portals like RBI’s UDGAM, IRDAI’s Bima Bharosa, and IEPFA for dividends, emphasising this money belongs to individuals, not the government.
The ecosystem indicates there is huge opportunity for growth in income in the asset recovery space in coming years. “People have struggled, for years, to recover their own assets,” says Deepak Jain, vice president at JioSaavn. Jain spoke about his experience of working previously at Saregama, where he worked with the compliance department for shares.
“The next seven to 10 years offer a huge opportunity for companies such as EquiTracers for sustainable profit to be made,” Jain says. “Companies such as EquiTracers understand the law and the ecosystem and know how to resolve issues.” The problem at the corporate side gets compounded because often mid-sized firms are short-staffed.
Malik says she does not want EquiTracers to become a legal mediator between the corporate and the client. “We want to remain a facilitator,” she says. Malik, who did an MBA from Chandigarh University, believes there’s growth in the space of unclaimed insurance policies. It will only spell good news for troubled investors.
First Published: Jan 19, 2026, 14:25
Subscribe Now(This story appears in the Jan 09, 2026 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, Click here.)
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