Crypto-Native Banking Platform Juno Raises $18 Mn To Launch Tokenised Loyalty Programme

Bengaluru-based crypto-native banking platform Juno has raised $18 Mn in a Series A funding round led by ParaFi Capital’s Growth Fund. Hashed, Jump Crypto, Uncorrelated Fund, Greycroft, Mithril, Antler Global, 6th Man Ventures and Abstract Ventures also participated in the funding round as well.

This is Juno’s second institutional funding round, having raised $3 Mn in seed funding from the likes of Sequoia and Polygon three years ago. The startup has raised $21 from investors in total to date.

Juno said it plans to use the funds to expand its digital banking products and launch a tokenised loyalty programme, backed by its native ERC20 token, JCOIN.

Founded in 2019 by Ratnesh Ray, Siddharth Verma and Varun Deshpande, Juno has three primary products related to banking, crypto on-ramp and off-ramp payments solution and its loyalty programme.

Juno’s digital banking solution is a checking account that allows users to buy crypto directly from the platform. The startup enables that by an on-ramp transaction to Layer 2 blockchains like Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism, charging zero processing fees. The digital banking platform also provides a debit card, Juno Card, for day-to-day transactions.

The startup’s latest product is its tokenised loyalty programme. Juno has integrated JCOIN into the loyalty programme and rewards users with JCOIN on transactions made via its checking account. According to Juno’s website, the token can be earned by making either fiat or crypto transactions.

Juno coins can be redeemed for discounts, rebates and access across the startup’s partner network. According to the startup, its banking platform is processing over $1 Bn in annualised transaction volume. Juno claims to have recorded a 10X growth in the number of customers in the last nine months.

Speaking about the funding round, Deshpande said, “We are rebuilding a checking account from the ground up with crypto and Web3 at its core. Juno empowers members to earn part of their paycheck in crypto and use crypto for everyday transactions like bill payments or buying coffee.”

On the loyalty programme, Deshpande said that Juno would target the growth of the crypto economy via the token-backed programme, as earning and using crypto are critical financial primitives to drive the crypto economy.

Juno’s funding and loyalty programme come at a time when crypto startups are facing uncertainty from a regulatory standpoint. India has adopted a stringent taxation regime and also introduced TDS on crypto transactions.

The taxation has also impacted adoption rates in the country, as India slipped to the fourth spot on the Global Crypto Adoption Index in 2022. Besides, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently informed the Parliament that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested banning cryptocurrencies in the country.