Now India’s second cryptocurrency unicorn, CoinSwitch Kuber plans to use the funds to hire talent across engineering, product and data functions besides launching more asset classes to spread awareness about cryptocurrency
ryptocurrency exchange Coinswitch Kuber on October 6 said it has raised over $260 million led by new investors Coinbase Ventures and top Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), bumping up its valuation four times in six months to $1.9 billion.
Moneycontrol reported on September 16 that a16z, one of the world’s most prolific investors is in talks to back Coinswitch- its first bet on an Indian company.
Existing backers Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Paradigm invested as well. The deal makes CoinSwitch India’s second cryptocurrency unicorn and 30th unicorn of 2021 in a record year for startup fundraising. Unicorns are private companies valued at a billion dollars or more.
CoinSwitch was founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni and Vimal Sagar Tiwari as a global aggregator of cryptocurrency exchanges. In June 2020, it launched Kuber, its India-focused crypto investment platform that has 4.5 million users. The company has an annual revenue of about $50 million, CEO Singhal told Moneycontrol in April.
It plans to use the funds to hire talent across engineering, product and data functions, in addition to launching more asset classes, spreading awareness about cryptocurrency and attracting institutional clients- compared to its retail consumer base so far.
“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. We wanted to remove all the complexities in crypto trading, educate consumers and give them a simplified experience of one-click buy and sell in crypto,” Singhal said.
The exchange, which hit 10 million users last month, now wants to get to 50 million users in the next few years.“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. Ashish and the team have demonstrated strong execution abilities and the ambition to deliver an investment platform for the masses in India,” said David George, partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
