Unocoin, an India-based Bitcoin startup, said on Friday it has raised $1.5 million in a pre Series-A financing round. This is the highest raised amount for a digital currency venue in India.
The round was backed by a strong team of international investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, Bitcoin Capital and FundersClub, as well as by-known local entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures.
The company will use the money to expand its offering with new, enhanced solutions, among other things. In the recent past, Unocoin introduced many innovations to its product portfolio, including a merchant point-of-sale (POS) app, a mobile trading app, an auto-selling feature for remittance users, systematic investment planning (SIP) to mitigate against volatility risk, integration with NETKI to simplify Bitcoin addresses, and launched an API for developers.
“Over the coming months and years, we’ll continue to build practical, useful features and tools on top of Bitcoin,” said Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO and co-founder of Unocorn, without providing details.
Unocoin presents itself as India’s most popular Bitcoin company. It operates one of the largest BTC/INR trading platforms that enables clients to buy, sell, store and use Bitcoins. Buying and selling is possible in Indian rupee through an Indian bank account, while storing and accepting the digital currency is done through users’ Unocoin wallets. The Unocoin platform has some 100,000 users who execute monthly transactions worth more than INR 200 million.
“Empowered with our current round of financing from many of the best investors in the world, we believe that Unocoin is strategically positioned to reach millions of people in the next few years,” said Sunny Ray, co-founder and president of Unocoin. “In the future, we believe that bitcoin has the potential to take market share from gold, substantially reduce the cost of remittance and potentially bank the unbanked.”
The company was founded in late 2013, initially on a trial basis and later in full operation, and is based in the city of Bangalore. Since April 2016, the company is owned by Unocoin Technologies Private Ltd., which is a fully owned subsidiary of Singapore-based holding company Unocoin Technologies Pte Ltd.
Source: https://smnweekly.com/2016/09/30/unocoin-raises-1-5-mln-in-pre-series-a-funding/
