Cashaa Technologies Ltd, a London-based cryptocurrency-focussed neo-bank, has raised $5 million (Rs 36 crore) to fuel its India expansion, among other things.
In a statement, the company said it has raised this capital from O1ex, a Dubai-based blockchain investment and advisory firm with IT operations in Kanpur.
Apart from India, Cashaa will also use the funding for African and Caribbean markets, it said. Its platform accepts several currencies including bitcoin, ethereum and dollar, with the company looking to add the rupee soon.
“We believe that the next big evolution in the banking and crypto space can actually happen from India. Hence, we have been actively working on developing products, working on our infrastructure and recruitments to power our entry into the Indian market,” Cashaa founder and chief executive officer Kumar Gaurav said.
Cashaa says it will also use part of the funds raised to cover users’ losses from the theft of 336 bitcoins (around $3.1 million) in July this year. The theft took place due to a security breach at its Delhi-based over-the-counter unit.
The investment in Cashaa is representative of continued investor interest in the cryptocurrency segment in India, which received a strong fillip from the Supreme Court in March after it struck down a ban on transactions in the space by the Reserve Bank of India.
The ban had led to a severe fall in trade volumes and exchanges shutting their businesses.
Also in March, Binance Holdings Ltd and Indian startup WazirX jointly launched an India-focussed 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.
In May, CoinDCX raised $2.5 million (around Rs 18.9 crore) in funding from Polychain Capital and Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of the US-based crypto company Coinbase.
