SUMMARY
CoinDCX said it has closed its Series A funding round
The investment has been led by Polychain Capital among others
The development comes after Supreme Court lifted RBI's trading ban on cryptocurrency
Mumbai-based cryptocurrency exchange aggregator CoinDCX has closed its Series A round with $3 Mn in funding, led by Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and HDR Group, operator of BitMEX, with participation from other venture capitalists.
The funds will be used for its next phase of development including product enhancements, service enhancements, research and development, marketing activities, and human resource growth. The company said that the fresh funding will allow it to accelerate improvements to its service-offering to match the recent uptick in Indian crypto users.
CoinDCX will also deploy the funds towards market expansion activities, as well as the addition of new trading pairs to the CoinDCX platform. The exchange also has plans to develop a fiat onboarding solution in partnership with major crypto projects, algorithm-based trading, as well as a crypto-to-crypto trading product in the pipeline for 2020.
Founded in 2018 by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal, CoinDCX allows individuals to buy and sell cryptocurrency through a marketplace model. The aggregator aggregates 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.
Its suite of products includes DCXInsta, its fiat-to-crypto product, allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with INR instantly; DCXtrade, a spot trading product providing access to over 500 markets; DCXMargin, a margin trading product that provides 6x leverage on over 200 crypto coins; as well as DCXFutures, its futures trading product with up to 15x leverage, near-negligible maker and taker fees.
Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of Polychain Capital said, “We have chosen to partner with CoinDCX to build out a superior trading product that is fit for the region and to support its move to promote cryptocurrencies in one of the largest markets in the world. The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the banking ban is an encouraging sign for the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem in India and we are confident that there is huge potential growth in this market.”
Arthur Hayes, cofounder and CEO of HDR Group, said, “The recent developments in the cryptocurrency regulatory landscape in India are very encouraging and are likely to accelerate adoption and innovation in this sector.”
A Supreme Court order on March 4 lifted the banking ban on cryptocurrency trading in the country. The RBI had virtually banned cryptocurrency trading in India in April 2018. It had also issued circulars cautioning users, holders and traders of virtual currencies, including Bitcoin.
However, RBI is said to be planning to file a review petition in SC to curb cryptocurrency transactions in India. RBI is concerned about the flaws which would come along with cryptocurrency transactions. The central bank believes that allowing cryptocurrency transactions will put the banking system at risk.
The latest judgement has brought winds of change in the crypto industry. While Zebpay has already 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. Recently, Binance announced the acquisition of Indian exchange WazirX, OKEx entered into a partnership with CoinDCX.
