Coinswitch Kuber on Wednesday said it has raised USD 260 million (around Rs 1,943 crore) in a fundraising round that values it at USD 1.9 billion. The company becomes the second crypto exchange to achieve the unicorn status after rival Coindcx, even as deep concerns on the crypto currencies among the regulators continue.
In business parlance, a unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over USD 1 billion. Coinswitch Kuber said it has raised money from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures and existing investors Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. ‘a16z’ is a venture capital firm known to back bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology while Coinbase is one of the early pioneers of creating a crypto economy and operates one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, as per the statement.
It can be noted that the RBI has expressed its deep concerns about private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins multiple times in the past and has conveyed the same to the government. The concerns stem from the high volatility of the instruments, lack of transparency in supply etc. Coinswitch said it will utilize the funds to make crypto a household name and is targeting to onboard 50 million Indians on its platform.
The money will also be utilised to hire leaders and experts across engineering, product, data, growth to define the crypto industry in the country, adding new asset classes, onboarding institutional clients, launching an ecosystem fund and on crypto awareness, the statement said. Coinswitch Kuber is on a mission to build wealth for Indians by making crypto more accessible. I believe, simplifying crypto investments for the Indian youth has helped us to stand out, its co-founder and chief executive Ashish Singhal said, adding that it has reached the unicorn status within 14 months of operations in the country.
Started in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni, and Vimal Sagar, the company was launched as a global aggregator of crypto exchanges. It launched India operations in June 2020 and presently has 10 million users in India, of which 7 million were classified as monthly active. We are incredibly excited about the crypto market opportunity in India, and with its breakout growth, Coinswitch has emerged as the leading retail platform in the country, David George, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said.
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