By Nandita Mathur, LiveMint
New Delhi, India, December 23, 2020
Cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinDCX has raised ₹100 crore ($13.9 million) in a Series B funding round led by Block.one and included DG, Jump Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Mehta Ventures and Alex Pack.
CoinDCX said it plans to use the newly raised funds to drive crypto adoption in India, with cutting-edge innovative products including the newly launched Bitcoin/Crypto Investment App, CoinDCX Go. The funds will also help to attract and retain fresh talent and sustain the hockey stick growth in 2021.
“This has been the most exciting year for CoinDCX. While the pandemic forced everyone indoors, CoinDCX scaled up exponentially and continues to do so. Our team tripled in number from 30 in March to 90 in December, and we are continuing to hire aggressively,” said Sumit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of CoinDCX in a statement.
Gupta said that the funds raised in the past as well as the current round will help the exchange develop its newly launched Bitcoin & Crypto Investment App CoinDCX Go and make it the easiest and the safest way to onboard the everyday Indian into cryptocurrencies. “The new app is a flagship product from our #TryCrypto movement, which aims to onboard 50 million Indians into the cryptocurrency market,” he added.
This is the third round of funding for CoinDCX this year. In March 2020, CoinDCX raised Series A funding worth $3 million from companies such as Polychain Capital, Bain Ventures and Bitmex. In May 2020, the exchange raised $2.5 million in a strategic round from the above companies as well as Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase. In total, CoinDCX has raised close to $19.4 million, till date.
The global pandemic saw an interest in digital assets growing consistently as more investors explored these new liquidity options. Analysts are seeing this trend accelerate exponentially, as both institutional and individual investors embrace these new asset classes to diversify their portfolios. India is seen as an emerging market for cryptocurrencies and retail investors aged between 25 and 40 are spending millions daily on cryptocurrency trading in India every day,
Saurabh Sharma, General Partner at Jump Capital said, “India is an emerging market for cryptocurrencies and CoinDCX is spearheading the cryptocurrency adoption in India. As one of CoinDCX’s investors, we are proud and heartened to see the exchange evolve in such a short span of time.”
While CoinDCX has been seeing steady growth, it hit a peak in the past six months. The exchange claims it saw 3X growth in the overall volume traded and saw 4X quarter-over-quarter growth in daily active users, in the April-June quarter. Overall, in Q2 and Q3, CoinDCX saw 12% increase in signups and 20% increase in volume. CoinDCX saw 21% month on month (m-o-m) growth in trade volume and 25% m-o-m growth in the number of users, in October.
“With the increased interest in digital currencies, CoinDCX’s role in making cryptocurrencies accessible to everyone in the world’s second-most populous country is even more vital. We’re excited to be partnering with some of the smartest investors in blockchain and crypto to support mass-scale digital asset adoption,” said Brendan Blumer, the CEO of Block.one, developer of leading blockchain protocol EOSIO.
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