Indonesia’s crypto trading platform and mobile wallet Pintu has successfully raised $35 million in a recent funding round. The company plans to beef up its team and products offerings to expand its operations in Indonesia before entering other Southeast Asian markets.
The $35 million Series A+ funding round was led by Lightspeed Ventures, according to Cointelegraph. Other high-profile participants include Alameda Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Pantera Capital, and Intudo Ventures.
Pintu wants to tap into the huge potential of the Indonesian market where crypto adoption, while still low, has been growing steadily. The company plans to roll out new product offerings and hire additional talent.
“As the fourth-most populous country in the world and with only 1-2% of Indonesians having exposure to cryptocurrencies, there is an immense opportunity for retail investors to gain access to diversified and dynamic investment opportunities through Pintu’s unique crypto-asset trade offerings,” Pintu’s CEO and co-founder, Jeth Soetoyo, said.
Pintu’s chief operating officer Andrew Adjiputro explained the company’s decision for the funding round, which came just two months after the previous $6 million Series A round led by Pantera, Intudo, and Coinbase Ventures in May.
“With the Coinbase IPO and a lot of new users onboarding, we think it’s the right time for us to raise a larger round to finance faster growth,” Adjiputro told TechCrunch. “It’s good momentum for us to launch new products and grab the market.”
Pintu app downloads rose by 3.5 times through organic growth and the platform’s active users increase by 4 times during the first half of 2021. The crypto platform, which currently supports 16 cryptocurrencies, plans to add more coins including NFT tokens.
“We’re very selective in terms of the coins we introduce because this is a platform for first-time investors and beginners, so we want to protect them, not only in terms of our UI but also the selection of coins we have,” Pintu chief marketing officer Timothius Martin said.
Considering the influx of first-time crypto investors to the platform, Pintu provides them with various educational materials. It features the Pintu Academy, which is a collection of videos and articles on crypto.
“They became curious and the bread and butter of our business is essentially education,” Adjiputro said. “We have a lot of education on our platform and it attracts this new breed of investors who want to learn more.”
Comment 6