Cryptocurrency exchange CoinSwitch Kuber is now India’s second crypto unicorn and also the most precious at $1.9 billion valuation with the newest investment round of more than $260 million, announced by the business on Wednesday. In August this year, a different crypto exchange CoinDCX had announced a $1.1 billion valuation with its Series C round of $90 million. CoinSwitch Kuber stated it raised its Series C round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures and current investors like Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India, and Tiger Global. The startup stated it accomplished the unicorn status in ‘just over 14 months of operations in the country.
CoinSwitch Kuber will deploy new capital towards getting 50 million users on its platform, launching new crypto products, leadership hiring across engineering, product, data, growth and other roles, reaching out to institutional clients, setting up an ‘ecosystem fund’ to back people today constructing crypto solutions, and developing crypto awareness amongst investors.
“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,” Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber stated in a statement.
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Launched in 2017 as a international aggregator of crypto exchanges, the business started operations in India in June last year. In September this year, the business announced hitting 10 million registered user mark to “become India’s largest crypto platform,” a business statement stated. Of this user base, 7 million are active customers with a month-to-month transaction volume of Rs 15,138 crores.
Over 55 per cent of CoinSwitch Kuber customers come from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, though 45 per cent from Tier-I cities. According to the business, typical crypto investment is about Rs 9,000 per month per user, with investors in Tier- I cities creating bigger trades more than smaller sized towns. The typical month-to-month ticket size per user is about Rs 11,600 in Tier-I cities, about Rs 6,600 in Tier-II, and Rs 3,500 in Tier-III cities.