Crypto exchange CoinDCX raises $2.5 million in fresh funding

Mumbai: Cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX has raised Rs 18.98 crore (about $2.5 million) in a follow-on investment round led by Polychain Capital and Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of American cryptocurrency major Coinbase.

The fresh round of funds are intended to help the startup drive crypto adoption in India and support its plan of increasing crypto investors/traders in India to 50 million. Funds will also be deployed towards a blockchain and cryptocurrency learning programme aimed at first-time cryptocurrency traders.

“The recent months have shown that the cryptocurrency industry in India is finally getting the recognition it deserves from global corporations and investors,” said Sumit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of CoinDCX. “This new strategic investment into CoinDCX is a shot of confidence in our roadmap toward bringing the crypto asset class to a largely untapped Indian market.”

The company had raised a $3 million Series A round earlier in March, which was also led by Polychain Capital and included Bain Capital Ventures and HDR Group, operator of BitMEX.

The company’s other key investor, Coinbase, has also made investments in other cryptocurrency businesses such as Compound, BlockFi, Etherscan, Securitize and Messari.

Following the lifting of an industry-wide banking ban by the Reserve Bank of India in March, CoinDCX said its sign-ups had increased by 10 times in one week. The exchange’s trading volumes had risen by 47% and it saw a 150% growth in daily active users in March, it said.

The fresh round of funding comes at a time when cryptocurrency trade is seeing new highs in India, amidst the global economic uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cryptocurrency investments like bitcoin have been growing ahead of traditional assets like equity and gold globally. Bitcoin has also been getting endorsements from mainstream trading circles, including from veteran hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones II, who said that 1-2% of his assets were in bitcoin.