India gets its second crypto unicorn in less than two months with CoinSwitch Kuber raising $260 million funding in a Series C round led by 16z, American Venture Capital firm and Coinbase Ventures.
This is the first investment in Indian startup by 16z.
With this funding, CoinSwitch Kuber’s valuation has soared to $1.9 billion making it one of the most valuable crypto companies in the country. The investment round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, and Tiger Global.
CoinSwitch Kuber will be majorly using this funding in building up new asset classes, recruiting leadership functions and onboarding 50 million users. The startup wants to hire experts in product, engineering, data, and compliance to deal with present regulatory requirements.
The company is looking to launch a new ecosystem fund that will be meant for investing in blockchain and other crypto companies in India. CoinSwitch Kuber will also use the fund to build crypto awareness in the country and make tactical investments that might help the startup to build its business further.
Diving Deeper
Founded in 2017 by Govind Soni, Ashish Singhal, and Vimal Sagar Tiwari, CoinSwitch Kuber offers a secure and user-friendly platform for crypto users in India. The users can buy over 100 cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and more easily at the best rate with a wide range of payment options.
CoinSwitch Kuber was launched as a global aggregator of crypto operations and started its operations in India in 2020. The startup claims to have over 10 million users in the country with a monthly active user base of more than 7 million.
The company started its operations in India with a focus on simplifying cryptocurrency investment. According to Ashish Singhal CEO and co-founder, “A lot of people who invest with us are under the age of 28 and are first time investors who haven’t invested in any other assets other than crypto. These young users will want to grow with us as a platform, de-risk themselves from the volatility of crypto, and eventually have a portfolio which is balanced on the volatility end.”
The new asset classes which the startup aims to build will not allow users to use crypto to buy traditional assets instead it will operate alongside the regular crypto exchange and will enable users to use fiat currencies. CoinSwitch Kuber is hoping that its new services and products will help in growing its user base from 10 million to 50 million eventually.
Discussion about this post