Transak Bags $20 Mn To Scale Web3 Payments & Onboarding Infra Solutions

Web3 payments solutions startup Transak has raised $20 Mn as part of its Series A funding round led by CE Innovation Capital.

The round also saw participation from other global Web3 investors such as SBI Ven Capital, Sygnum, Azimut, Third Kind Venture Capital, UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, Animoca Brands, Genting Ventures, Istari Ventures, No Limit Holdings, Woodstock Fund, IOSG Ventures, KX, Axelar, Tokentus, and The Lao.  

Besides institutional investors, the round also saw participation from angel investors such as Index Ventures’ Jan Hammer, Charles Delingpole of ComplyAdvantage and Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal. 

The startup will use the funds to strengthen its Web3 onboarding solutions and expand the global coverage of its products. The capital will also be deployed to ramp up the development of products catering to aspects such as Web3 games and financial applications.

“At CEiC Innovation Capital, we’re strategically invested in propelling the Web3 ecosystem forward. Transak stands at the forefront of this revolution, wielding their On & Off Ramp solution as a potent instrument to usher in the next billion Web3 users,” said a partner at CE Innovation, Capital Bingze Gu.

Chiming in, Polygon cofounder and investor Sandeep Nailwal said, “Being deeply involved in the blockchain space, I’ve seen firsthand the barriers to entry that many face when entering the Web3 world. Transak has consistently shown an impressive commitment to lowering these barriers, making it easier for everyone to participate in the digital economy… I am excited to see how Transak continues to drive forward the vision of a more decentralised and democratised digital world.”

Founded in 2019 by Sami Start and Yeshu Agarwal, Transak is a Web3 payments and onboarding infrastructure provider that allows users to switch between traditional finance and crypto assets. Transak offers a fiat-to-crypto payment gateway that allows businesses to onboard users by enabling the end customer to buy or sell crypto assets across more than 150 countries. 

Transak also takes care of aspects such as user KYC, risk monitoring, payment methods and other compliances for businesses looking to offer crypto products.

It also supports the onboarding of more than 160 crypto assets across 75 blockchains and caters to hundreds of B2B users across 350 applications. Its clients include big names such as MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet.

With a presence in multiple countries and headquarters in Singapore, Transak has grown its India operations heavily and has even picked up executives from homegrown startup giants such as Paytm and Flipkart to scale its India operations.

The startup also told Inc42 that it was committed to strengthening its developer relations in India to enable the creation of ‘groundbreaking’ Web3 apps for a global audience out of India. 

The development comes at a time when the entire crypto landscape in India has been pummelled by a heavy taxation regime and a purported funding winter that has dried up funding for Indian startups. The tightening of a regulatory noose around crypto exchanges from WazirX to ConSwitch Kuber has also dampened investor sentiment. 

While crypto deals have been scarce, there have been few announcements here and there in the Web3 space. Earlier last month, Huddle01, which is building a decentralised real-time communication (dRTC) network, secured $2.8 Mn in a seed funding round from Hivemind. In March, homegrown venture capital firm pi Ventures raised INR 22 Cr in its second fund, which it also intends to deploy for early-stage blockchain startups.