Silicon Valley's a16z in talks to back Coinswitch Kuber in first India bet at $2 billion valuation

Cryptocurrency (Representative image: Reuters)

Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world's most influential venture funds is in advanced talks to back Indian cryptocurrency exchange Coinswitch Kuber, its first bet on an Indian internet startup amid a record funding boom, sources told Moneycontrol.

a16z, as it is known, is leading a $100-200 million round in Coinswitch Kuber valuing it at $2 billion, a four-fold jump from its last round at $500 million in April, these people said, requesting anonymity.

Coinswitch's existing backers Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital India and Ribbit Capital are also aggressive on the exchange, which hit 10 million users recently.

Coinswitch did not immediately respond to a query from Moneycontrol seeking comment while a16z was not immediately reachable. Techcrunch first reported the deal talks earlier.

Coinswitch was founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni and Vimal Sagar Tiwari as a global aggregator of cryptocurrency exchanges. In June 2020, it launched Kuber, its India-focused crypto investment platform that has 4.5 million users. The company has an annual revenue of about $50 million, CEO Singhal told Moneycontrol in April.

A16z, founded by former Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and software executive Ben Horowitz has been one of the world's most aggressive investors in technology in general, and cryptocurrency in particular.

While it has been investing in crypto since 2013, back when it was a less popular asset class. It has since raised dedicated crypto funds, most recently a $2.2 billion crypto fund in June this year.

An early investor in Facebook, Pinterest and Lyft among others, 11-year-old a16z today manages funds over $18 billion.

The deal also comes at a time when Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices have been low after a record bull run earlier in the year.