CoinSwitch Kuber is India’s second crypto unicorn after $260 mn funding

India’s growing cryptocurrency market is attracting global tech investment giants. The crypto trading platform, CoinSwitch Kuber has received $260 million in a Series C funding round led by American tech venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures and existing investors Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. a16z is a globally leading 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.

This also marks a16z’s first investment in India valuing CoinSwitch Kuber at $1.9 billion. The crypto trading platform is now the second unicorn in the cryptocurrencies vertical after CoinDCX which raised $90 million at $1.1 billion valuation in August this year.

The company said that it will utilise the funding to onboard 50 million users and launch various crypto products - such as lending and staking among others - to enable users to benefit the most out of this decentralised technology. CoinSwitch Kuber also aims to acquire the best talent, including leaders and experts across engineering, product, data, growth, etc to define the crypto industry in India.

The company plans to design ways of simplifying the investment journey of Indians, and in the process, offer multiple avenues of investment for them through different products and asset classes.

“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,” Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, said.

“We are humbled by the trust shown in CoinSwitch Kuber by two of the biggest names in the global crypto investment arena with Andreessen Horowitz choosing us to be their first investment in India. Coinbase Ventures’ investment is also testimony to the confidence they have in CoinSwitch Kuber’s business model and the tremendous potential India’s crypto space has to offer,” he said.

In India, despite the cryptocurrency market growing at a 600 per cent rate in 2021, the regulations around the digital asset are still awaited by the industry. The government, according to the sources, is contemplating introducing a law in the parliament aimed to regulate the virtual tokens.

CoinSwitch Kuber said that there is a growing interest among the institutions to enter the crypto market and that the platform intends to tap into this opportunity. It also aims to establish an ecosystem fund to attract the talent for building the crypto products and technology revolving around it.

Founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni, and Vimal Sagar, CoinSwitch was launched as a global aggregator of crypto exchanges. The company launched its India operations in June 2020. CoinSwitch Kuber’s previous investors include Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global along with notable angel investors like Kunal Shah. CoinSwitch Kuber has over 10 million users in India with a monthly active user base of over 7 million.

Also read: India’s latest unicorn is cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX