India’s leading trading platform CoinDCX has doubled its valuation to $2.15 billion after a fresh $135 million capital injection, with an aim to spread its footprint in the web3 and the crypto industry in general co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal tweeted today.
The Series D financing round was spearheaded by Steadview and Pantera Capital. Others who backed the funding exercise were Coinbase Ventures, Kingsway, DraperDragon, Republic, and Kindred Ventures also participated in the Mumbai-headquartered startup’s new funding. To date, CoinDCX has raised more than $245 million.
In an interview with a local news outlet, Sumit Gupta CEO of CoinDCX told that the recent funding exercise demonstrates the bullish sentiments of global investors in the Indian crypto ecosystem despite domestic regulatory challenges.
The news also comes weeks after India’s crypto taxation rule came into effect. The rule imposed 30% on income generated on digital assets and also includes a 1% tax deduction at source for each trade. This resulted in a drastic reduction in the daily trading volumes across crypto exchanges as many investors and traders continue shunning crypto assets.
Admitted to being hit by the move, Gupta noted that the 1% TDS has made it somewhat less feasible for some High-Frequency Trading [HFT] to perform normally. “We continue to see new users come to the platform, but the growth is not as high as it used to be, say, two months ago,” he added.
CoinDCX to double down on its compliance efforts
The startup plans to double down on its compliance efforts, he said. “We will do whatever it takes to give more comfort to the regulators,” he said.
The crypto trading platform became the first Indian crypto firm to attain the unicorn status last year having amassed over 10 million users. Besides enabling users to purchase tokens for as low as 100 Indian rupees [$1.3], CoinDCX also provides margin trading and the option to stake digital assets.
CoinDCX, in collaboration with Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital, is also working to educate the retail investors and help contribute to expanding the local ecosystem, the exec said. The startup plans to introduce educational content and byte-sized videos in its app, Gupta said.