Polychain, Bain Capital Join $3M Series A Round for Indian Exchange CoinDCX

Prominent backers have joined a $3 million funding round for Mumbai-based exchange CoinDCX just weeks after a banking ban for cryptocurrency businesses was overturned.

CoinDCX said Tuesday that investment firms Bain Capital and Polychain Capital as well as BitMEX-owner HDR Global Trading were among those that participated in the Series A round.

Funding in hand, the exchange plans to promote cryptocurrency adoption in India and further boost product development and marketing, said the firm. Specifically, CoinDCX will introduce financial products and support algorithmic-based trading later this year.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the banking ban is an encouraging sign for the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem in India, and we are confident that there is huge potential growth in this market,” said Sumit Gupta, CoinDCX’s co-founder and CEO, following Tuesday’s announcement.

The news marks a remarkable change in fortunes for an exchange that, for most of its history, relied on peer-to-peer crypto trading to keep itself afloat after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a blanket ban on banks providing services to cryptocurrency businesses in April 2018.

But after the nation’s Supreme Court ruled the RBI’s ban was disproportionate to the threat posed by digital assets, local industry players said they were preparing for a resurgent cryptocurrency scene in India.

CoinDCX told CoinDesk user signups have increased 10-fold since the RBI ban lifted. And although trading volumes prior to the ban are not being disclosed, the platform is now seeing $10 million to $15 million in transaction volume a day on average.