Top executives, senior engineer quit crypto unicorn CoinSwitch Kuber to build Web3 startup

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Three top executives and a senior blockchain developer of crypto unicorn CoinSwitch Kuber have quit the company at a time when cryptocurrency exchanges are seeing large drawdowns by investors.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sarmad Nazki, Chief Business Officer (CBO) Sharan Nair, Senior Vice President Krishna Hegde and Yadunandan Batchu, a senior blockchain engineer, have left the company to start their own Web3 venture.

Meanwhile, former CFO of embattled e-commerce startup Zilingo Ramesh Bafna has taken over the reins as CoinSwitch Kuber's CFO. Both Zilingo and Coinswitch Kuber count Sequoia as one of their major investors.

The exchange said a transition had been going on for weeks as the three executives decided to leave the company. 

“All four of us are very passionate about crypto and we want to build a global Web3 company from India. We are in talks with various investors for a seed funding round, but have not zeroed in on an idea for the startup yet," said Sharan Nair.

"Had it been six months back, the expectations would have been different. As crypto is in a bear market now, we can build something for fundamental use cases rather than targeting users who are attracted to crypto just to make a quick buck," added Nair.

He confirmed that the co-founders would build their crypto startup in India even as many industry players are moving abroad due to regulatory flip flops in the country.

“I'm happy to see Sharan, Sarmad and Krishna spread out and continue to build toward this future, and we at CoinSwitch look forward to future collaborations,” said Ashish Singhal, CEO and co-founder of CoinSwitch Kuber.

Nair said, “We are super passionate about Crypto and we believe it is here to stay. We will continue to take guidance from CoinSwitch team, which has been my home turf for the last 4+ years as we build India into the Web3 hub of the world.”

Singhal added that the transition had been going on for weeks since the three executives decided to leave the company. He added, “We have a strong set of leaders to take over their functions.”

Ex-Myntra, Flipkart and Wipro executive Ramesh Bafna has joined CoinSwitch as the CFO, said Singhal. He added, “Bafna has been working in tandem with Sarmad to effect a smooth and seamless transition.”

In addition, Rishav Dev has replaced Hegde as VP of New Initiatives who will lead our efforts in building the company’s new and exciting verticals, Singhal said. The company also added R Venkatesh, Senior VP, Public Policy, who will lead the public policy initiatives.

In October last year, the company raised over $260 million led by Coinbase Ventures and top Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), bumping up its valuation four times in six months to $1.9 billion.

Crypto bloodbath

As virtual assets face a bloodbath, several companies in the sector like Celsius and Vauld who offered complex crypto instruments have gone belly up. 

On July 4, Singapore-based Vauld sent shock waves among investors with an announcement that it was suspending trading and withdrawals with immediate effect, citing financial difficulties. 

The announcement triggered panic across the crypto community, which flooded social media and messaging apps with questions.  

Meanwhile, in the first six months of 2022, top crypto exchanges such as WazirX, CoinDCX, Bitbns and Zebpay, among others, lost more than 70-75 percent of their trading volumes on a monthly average basis. Following the July 1 implementation of the 1 percent TDS (tax deducted at source) on virtual digital assets (VDAs) that was announced in the budget, the situation has only worsened.

While industry stakeholders and experts remained hopeful, terming it a cyclical event, they cautioned that smaller exchanges may face the risk of going bust, even as larger ones may have to slash costs by cutting jobs.