Neblio Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, has raised $2.5 million (approximately Rs 18.90 crore at current exchange rates) in a strategic investment.
The company has secured this capital from the blockchain-focused Polychain Capital, and Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of the US-based crypto company Coinbase.
The Mumbai-based company said in a statement it will use the funds to promote its campaign to increase the adoption of cryptocurrency, to raise the number of Indians using the alternative financial system to 50 million.
The development comes just two months after CoinDCX raised $3 million (around Rs 22.84 crore) in its Series A funding round from Polychain, Bain Capital Ventures and HDR Group, which operates cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX.
CoinDCX was founded by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal in early 2018. The startup says its platform serves as a single point of access to the cryptocurrency industry, which otherwise has a multitude of companies specialising in different services such as spot trading or margin trading, forcing people to use multiple services.
“This new strategic investment into CoinDCX is a shot of confidence in our roadmap toward bringing the crypto asset class to a largely untapped Indian market,” Gupta said.
Separately, Coinbase Ventures head Shan Aggarwal said the firm was confident of its bet on CoinDCX because of its positioning and future potential in the domestic cryptocurrency market.
The investment in the startup is the latest on a firm in the cryptocurrency space, which till around a month ago was operating in the shadow of a Reserve Bank of India ban on trading the asset class. The Supreme Court struck down that ban in March, allowing banks to handle cryptocurrency transactions from exchanges and traders.
Also in March, Binance Holdings Ltd and Indian startup WazirX jointly launched an India-focused fund to incubate and invest in blockchain projects and startups in the country. The Blockchain for India fund has a corpus of $50 million (Rs 370 crore), said WazirX in a statement.
Binance had acquired WazirX to allow its customers to buy and sell cryptocurrency with Indian rupees on its platform.
