[India gets its first Crypto Unicorn] CoinDCX Raises $90 Million at $1.1 billion valuation

CoinDCX has become India's first cryptocurrency unicorn after the exchange raised INR 6.70 billion ($90 million). Facebook's co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital Group led the funding round. It also saw participation from Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Block.one, and Jump Capital. The latest funding round values the firm at $1.1 billion, Sumit Gupta. CEO and Co-founder, CoinDCX confirmed. The startup joins upGrad and BharatPe who have turned Unicorns this week. With its new Unicorn tag, CoinDCX has joined the league of Binance/WazirX in India. Other major competitors include Bitpanda, BlockFi, Chainalysis, Ripple, XRP, and Robinhood.

Gupta added that the company plans to use part of the funds to double the team to 400 in the next six months. CoinDCX also plans on launching new products in the coming months targeting wealthy individuals. “Apart from this, we will join hands or enter into partnerships with key fintech players to expand crypto investor base; set up a Research & Development (R&D) facility; strengthen the policy conversations; through public discourse, work with the government to introduce favorable regulations, and amp up the hiring initiatives,” he added.

Crypto investments grew to nearly $6.6 billion in May from some $923 million in April 2020, according to Chainalysis. The investment comes as policymakers continue to debate the status of digital currencies in India. RBI recently announced that the cryptocurrency sector, especially private virtual currencies in India poses some concerns. Thus, the government will take a final stance on the matter. “I am pretty sure the industry will be regulated at the right time,” Gupta said. “We have chosen to put at stake our money and career. Thus, we feel this is going to be a very good wealth generation opportunity for people.”

“We have a very tech-savvy population; good mobile penetration, big base of engineers and developers who can leverage blockchain technology,” Gupta added. He also added that he believes India will produce more than 100 crypto unicorn start-ups in the next few years post- firm regulations.

About CoinDCX

The three-year-old startup has already onboarded more than 3.5 million users. It now wants to make crypto accessible in India. Thus, it aims to accelerate its efforts towards bringing 50 million Indians into crypto. Besides its main exchange catering to retail investors, CoinDCX also provides trading and lending services for enterprise customers, traders. It also has a global trading platform and blockchain academy for education. With the growing positive sentiments in the crypto space this year, CoinDCX said it will continue to scale its dedicated products on the investments and trading side.