CoinDCX Raises $2.5 Mn From Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures To Bring Crypto To The Masses

After raising $3 Mn in March in its Series A funding round, Mumbai-based cryptocurrency exchange aggregator CoinDCX has now bagged $2.5 Mn strategic investment led by existing investor Polychain Capital. Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, also participated in the round.

Besides scaling up its tech and business, CoinDCX is now planning to invest the funds to facilitate more robust cryptocurrency trading in India. Speaking to Inc42, cofounder of CoinDCX Sumit Gupta said that the startup is planning to invest the funds to increase crypto adoption across the country.

“We want to make the platform as simple as an ecommerce platform where buyers can invest in crypto as they buy products from these marketplaces.”

For this, CoinDCX is launching ‘#TryCrypto’ campaign and is committing $1.3 Mn towards this initiative alone.

Founded in 2018 by Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal, CoinDCX allows individuals to buy and sell cryptocurrency through a marketplace model. The aggregator sells global liquidity and trading services onto a single platform. The company claims to have a liquidity aggregation model integrated with top global exchanges including Binance, Huobi, and OKEx.

Trading products offered by CoinDCX include DCXmargin, DCXinsta, DXCtrade, DCXlend, DCXfuture and DCXconvest. “All these products are for different needs of investors. Our investors select these products based on factors such as time for which they want to invest, risk involved, margin, among others,” Gupta said.

CoinDCX is now also planning to add more products to its suite to make the journey of an investor much easier on the platform. Gupta said that the startup will also invest a part of the recently raised funding to bring these new products to the platform and to improve the technology stack to make it more intuitive for investors to trade on CoinDCX.

The Goal: 50 Mn Crypto Investors

As part of the new campaign, CoinDCX will launch ‘DCX Learn’, a blockchain and cryptocurrency learning platform aimed toward first-time and novice cryptocurrency traders.

The initiative will primarily help first-time investors navigate through the crypto market safely while guiding them on how to make safer investments. In India, there’s still a gap which leaves investors to turn away from cryptocurrencies as they often consider these investment tools unsafe. “We want to bridge this gap,” Gupta added.

Besides the DCX Learn, the startup is also looking to conduct various events, and webinars to educate investors about crypto trading. Gupta said that similar events have been conducted in the past by CoinDCX but the startup is now looking to scale such programmes in India.

“The plan is to onboard 50 Mn crypto investors from India,” Sumit Gupta.

As of now, not many investors go for cryptocurrencies because they don’t actually understand how it works. And CoinDCX’s initiative is said to be built in such a way that will guide an investor to first understand the trade before investing in it. “Crypto trading is a comparatively newer investment vehicle. We’ll have to handhold them so that they have the right knowledge and tools in place,” Gupta said.

Crypto’s Rise In India

In the past few months, the cryptocurrency industry in India is on the rise after the Supreme Court’s decision cleared the air on its legality. Following the lifting of the industry-wide trading ban in February 2020, CoinDCX witnessed 47% growth in trading volumes while 10X it amassed 10X expansion in the user base. In March, CoinDCX registered 150% growth in daily active users.

CoinDCX claims that it is the first cryptocurrency exchange in India to integrate bank account transfers on its exchange. Gupta said that the decision of the apex court added a layer of credibility to the crypto business in India. “As a result, banks and financial service providers and payment solutions providers have started exploring at the crypto domain,” he added.

This has helped players like CoinDCX to look out for more partnership with banks and payment solution providers. At the same time, the trust of end-users has also increased as they trust these banks and payment gateways for safe and secure transactions.

Indeed, the SC judgement brought winds of change in the crypto industry. For instance, while Zebpay made a comeback to India market under a different company name and new leadership, global exchanges such as Binance and OKEx have entered the Indian market as well. Binance acquired Indian exchange WazirX while OKEx entered into a partnership with CoinDCX.

Moreover, CoinDCX is also looking to invest the recently raised for working towards a strong and sustainable crypto regulation in India. “This is very important for the growth of the overall industry,” Gupta said.

As of now, there is no government organisation regulating cryptocurrency trading in India. Most of the crypto trading platforms are currently working on self-regulation. Gupta said that the industry is looking towards the government to come up with regulation along with the participation from the industry players.