Unicorn #30: Kuber smiles on India’s biggest crypto exchange
With $260 mn funding, Coinswitch Kuber hits $1.9 bn valuation
India clocked its 30th unicorn today — and its second in the crypto universe. Named after the god of wealth, Coinswitch Kuber, the country’s fast-growing and most valuable crypto asset platform, closed a $260 million Series C funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures and existing investors Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. With this, it hit a valuation of $1.9 billion — shooting past COINDCX, India’s other crypto unicorn, which had announced a $1.1-billion valuation in August this year.
One of the early pioneers of the crypto economy, Bengaluru-based Coinswitch Kuber operates among the world’s largest crypto exchanges. “The Coinswitch Kuber team,” said co-founder and CEO Ashish Singhal, “has worked round the clock to be the most preferred platform for crypto investors in India. This has helped us to reach the unicorn status in just over 14 months of operations in India.” With the funding, he said, they hoped to work towards bringing crypto to every household in India.
Started in 2017 by Singhal, Govind Soni and Vimal Sagar, Coinswitch was launched as a global aggregator of crypto exchanges and was soon catering to people in over 160 countries. The company launched its India operations in June 2020, after the Supreme Court quashed the Reserve Bank of India’s circular banning banks from facilitating cryptocurrency transactions.
The founders, who specialise in product development and tech, had earlier worked at Microsoft, Amazon and social game developer Zynga, and had known each other for some 13 years when they conceptualised and launched Coinswitch.
The platform currently has over 10 million users in India, with a monthly active user base of over seven million. Among others, Coinswitch Kuber also has angel investors like Kunal Shah.
The company intends to utilise the funding it has secured to onboard 50 million Indians on its platform and introduce new crypto products and services such as lending and staking, among others. Its primary goal is to make crypto a household name, and dominate India’s retail crypto market.
“I believe simplifying crypto investments for the Indian youth has helped us to stand out,” said Singhal, adding that the goal was to remove complexities from crypto trading, “educate consumers and give them a simplified experience of one-click buy and sell in crypto”.
Coinswitch Kuber also intends to cash in on the growing interest amongst institutions to enter the crypto market. It plans to set up an ecosystem fund to identify and enable talent in the crypto space in India.
“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,” said David George, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Ashish (Singhal) and the team have demonstrated strong execution abilities and the ambition to deliver an investment platform for the masses in India.”
Cryptocurrencies are still in a nascent stage in India and there isn’t enough awareness around them. The firm hopes to provide holistic crypto education to investors, both current and prospective, to help them navigate the market and understand multiple facets of this new asset class.
In the crypto universe, meanwhile, there remain concerns about the Indian government’s stance on the subject. While cryptocurrencies are not illegal in India, they are so far unregulated.
The company intends to utilise the funding it has secured to onboard
50 million Indians on its platform and introduce new crypto products