Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX raises $13.9 million in Series B funding

Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX has raised $13.9 million in Series B funding.

The round was led by Block.one, with participation from Temasek, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Polychain Capital, Mehta Ventures, and Alex Pack. (Pack is a former managing partner of Dragonfly Capital who joined Huobi's investment unit last month).

With fresh capital at hand, CoinDCX plans to scale its product and technology functions, grow its team, and beef up compliance and security parts of its platform, co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta told The Block.

On the product side, specifically, CoinDCX plans to upgrade its newly launched investment app CoinDCX Go. "A lot of features" are set to be added to the app "in the next couple of months," said Gupta. He added that the overall goal is to onboard "millions of new people into crypto."

To that end, CoinDCX is "actively hiring" people across functions and is looking to double its team from the current 90 people to about 180 in the next one year, said Gupta. As for compliance and security plans, Gupta did not reveal specific details but said, "we want to become India's most compliant exchange."

CoinDCX is also looking to scale its transaction monitoring and crypto storage capabilities, said Gupta. The exchange recently partnered with Onfido for strengthening its know-your-customer and anti-money laundering processes, as well as with BitGo to custody customer funds with a $100 million insurance.

Looking to the future, CoinDCX's specific goal is to onboard 50 million customers into crypto. Volumes appear to be secondary for the exchange. "We don't want customers to put a very large amount of capital. They should invest based on whatever their comfort zone is — INR 100 [$1.35], INR 1,000 [$15], 0.1% of their portfolio, or 1% of their portfolio. The important thing is to invest first, and then eventually, manage the portfolio."

CoinDCX currently has about 200,000 customers, and its trading volumes this year have grown by 200% compared to the last year, Gupta told The Block, without disclosing specific figures.

The Series B brings CoinDCX's total funding to date to $19.4 million. Previously, the exchange has raised $3 million in Series A and $2.5 million in a strategic funding round.