Vauld raises $2 million to fund expansion and hiring in India

Vauld, a Singapore-based crypto lending platform, has raised $2 million of institutional capital, to expand operations in India and abroad. The investors include Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, CMT digital, Gumi Cryptos Capital, LuneX Ventures, Robert Leshner (CEO of Compund Finance) and Tarun Chaitra’s Robot Ventures, CoinShares, Better Capital, New Form Capital, and Jesus Rodrigues (CEO of IntoTheBlock) among others.

Darshan Bathija, CEO of Vauld, said the company raised this round from being an India-focused crypto platform to a holistic DEFI platform which now also includes payments, credit and trading. “We finally see institutional capital come into India’s fintech ecosystem with the expectation of banking integrations that complement existing crypto credit offerings.”

Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital, said Vauld’s vision to make cryptocurrency the preferred instrument of banking and by making it simple to use  and interoperable with the current banking infrastructure is what the company is excited about.

Focus on Indian Market

Sanju Sony Kurian, Vauld’s Co-founder and CTO, said the company plans to double down on engineering talent and opening offices across the country. He pointed out that hiring is the focus of the hour in the Indian market. Bathija said they are also looking forward to closely working with the commodities and banking regulators in the country, and ensure the company’s partners are and remain fully compliant through the changing regulatory landscape.

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The team has also begun expansion to underpenetrated markets with medium to high inflation. The company said it makes sense, since customers in these markets stand to benefit the most from adopting cryptocurrencies. As such, the platform is built to be beginner-friendly, encouraging new investors to participate in the crypto market. Vauld works with BitGo, one of the most trusted custodian in the crypto world. The company is currently tackling the challenge to provide liquidity in new crypto markets, like India, for institutions to buy cryptocurrencies for the first time and generate a yield. The uncertainty around cryptocurrency’s legal status is also another challenge. Vauld intends to tackle head-on and bring in a mind set of accepting to digital tokens and crypto currencies as a legitimate asset class.