Crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber has raised $260 million in a Series C funding round led by legendary silicon valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) valued at $1.9 billion.
Other investors in the round included Coinbase Ventures and existing investors Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India, and Tiger Global. With this investment, CoinSwitch became the second unicorn crypto exchange from India. Earlier, rival exchange CoinDCX raised funds in August at a $1.1 billion valuation.
A16Z has been investing in crypto since 2013 including infrastructure, new layer 1s, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, DAOs, social tokens, decentralized social networks, and web 3 apps.
CoinSwitch Kuber will deploy the funds to onboard 50 million Indians on the CoinSwitch Kuber platform and introduction of new crypto products. The startup went from 1 million users in November 2020 to 5 million in May 2021, to 10 million in September 2021.
The cryptocurrency platform received $25 million in its Series B round from Tiger Global Management, marking the first investment of the New York-based hedge fund in a crypto platform in India, at a valuation of over $500 million. Tiger Global is known in India for being the earliest backer of Flipkart.
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In January, the Series A round saw an investment of $15 million led by Ribbit Capital and Paradigm. Launched initially as an aggregator, CoinSwitch turned into an investment platform in June 2020. The crypto startup reached unicorn status in less than 15 months since becoming an investment platform.
As per the press release, the crypto startup 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.
“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.
“CoinSwitch Kuber is on a mission to build wealth for Indians by making crypto more accessible,” said Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber. “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. 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.”
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