With the goal of becoming a one-stop-shop for investors seeking exposure to crypto assets, Bengaluru startup, Flint has raised a USD 5.1 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and GFC. Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, IOSG, Better Capital and MSA Capital also participated in the round as part of 11 institutional investors. Over 60 angel investors across the globe also participated in this funding round. Angel investors include:
The fresh capital will accelerate bringing early users on board, enhance the product based on early feedback, and hire for senior positions across engineering, design and product functions. Flint also plans to allocate a significant portion of the funding to strengthen legal and risk functions, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory norms, while also going above and beyond market standards to reduce business risk. Flint is a part of a new class of crypto startups that aims to offer a unique investment opportunity to investors beyond buying and selling crypto, enabling them to earn passive income in a convenient manner.
Founded in October 2021, the company currently offers a simple and stable income opportunity where users can earn up to 13% p.a. on their deposited funds. Flint doesn’t expose users to volatile crypto assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum. It only deals with stable cryptocurrencies like USDT, USDC, etc., that are free from crypto price fluctuations. As such, Flint removes all the complexities for its customers via an easy-to-use mobile app and offers simple exposure to crypto. Flint also provides the flexibility of having no ‘lock-in period’ where users can withdraw their funds at any time without any fees.
The company is taking a UX first approach for the retail users and building easy on-ramps.Anshu Agrawal, Co-Founder of Flint, said, “Flint’s mission is to make cryptocurrencies easy and accessible to everyone. We are at the tip of the iceberg and the opportunity that Web3 provides for the world is massive. As a brand, we simply intend to demystify crypto, provide easy-to-use products, and introduce a billion people to our inevitable future, ensuring Web3 becomes a part of our everyday lives. We also want to thank all our investors for placing their trust in us, our mission, and for joining hands with an aim to make Flint the first-choice crypto app across the globe, where users can earn high and stable yields on their crypto assets via plenty of investment opportunities”.
“Just the way billions of people were on-boarded onto the internet in the last decade, billions of users will be on boarded onto web3.0 in the next few years. We believe Anshu, Akshit and the Flint team bring the right background in building consumer products as well as the web3 DNA that can enable massive distribution, and offer best-in-class and easy-to-understand financial products to its users,” said Aakash Kapoor, VP, Sequoia India.
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“Indian demand for crypto investment products is highly underserved and inaccessible to most. We believe Flint’s vision to lower the barriers to entry for retail investors to access crypto investments, within a modest risk profile akin to fixed deposits, is crucial for onboarding and enabling the underbanked to build wealth. We have benchmarked and invested in similar models globally and believe that Anshu and Akshit to be amongst the best young entrepreneurs we’ve encountered,” said Ben Harburg, Managing Partner, MSA Capital.
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