CoinSwitch Kuber Raises $15 Mn In Series A Round Led By Ribbit Capital And Paradigm The company plans to invest in tech, security, compliance, and product capabilities to lead the cryptocurrency investment platform for Indians and targets a user base of 10 million by the end of 2021
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Bengaluru-headquartered cryptocurrency investment platform CoinSwitch Kuber on Wednesday announced that it has closed $15 million in its Series A funding round led by leading global fintech and crypto investor Ribbit Capital with San-Francisco based crypto-focused investment firm, Paradigm. The round also saw participation from the company's existing investor Sequoia Capital India and angel investor CRED's Kunal Shah.
The company will use the funds to enhance the product, security, compliance, and tech capabilities, and build a formidable brand with a view to being the leading cryptocurrency investment platform for Indian users.
"We are thrilled to have the world's most focused fin-tech and crypto investors, Ribbit and Paradigm join us as partners in our journey to make cryptocurrency investments accessible to retail investors in India. The continued backing of our existing investors led by Sequoia Capital India is a testimony to the tremendous impact we have had on the crypto ecosystem in the country within a short time of our launch. We aim to double down on the Indian market and are targeting a ten times growth in our user base by the end of the year. To this end, we will invest in product and technology and also run a slew of awareness initiatives to educate investors about the potential of crypto as an emerging asset class," shared Ashish Singhal, chief executive officer, and co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber.
The company launched its India exclusive crypto platform in June 2020 to simplify crypto investments for Indian retail investors. Within six months of launch, over one million users have said to have already flocked to the platform owing to the ease of usage, security, and the large collection of cryptocurrencies. The company expects to have 10 million users on the platform in the next year.
"We are very excited to invest in CoinSwitch, which we believe can become a generational technology brand in India. Our mandate is to invest in the best entrepreneurs and technologists driving change in financial services, and Ashish, Vimal, and Govind fit the bill. We backed the team not only because of their track record of product and technology innovation but also because of their resolute commitment to serving their customers," stated Nick Shalek, General Partner, Ribbit Capital.
The global spike in interest in cryptocurrencies has rubbed off on the Indian investors too, making India the second-biggest bitcoin nation in Asia after China, and the sixth biggest in the world, after the US, Nigeria, China, Canada, and the UK. According to reports, Indian cryptocurrency trading volumes have grown 500 per cent since March 2020, signaling the country's massive appetite for cryptocurrencies.
"We are thrilled to partner with CoinSwitch in its mission to bring simple crypto investing to the Indian market. While the crypto landscape in India remains nascent, it has been an exciting past 12 months and over time we believe India could be one of the largest global crypto markets. Ashish and the CoinSwitch team have shown tremendous resilience and strong execution in a challenging market, giving us confidence in their potential to build a market leader in the years to come," collectively concluded Matt Huang, co-founder and managing partner, Paradigm and Arjun Balaji, investment partner, Paradigm, in a statement.
