This Indian crypto company just raised $2.5 million to launch crypto mutual funds and ETFs

• Indian crypto asset management company Mudrex has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners.
• Other investors include Village Global, Kunal Shah, Anand Chandrashekharan, and Anjali Bansal. The company was selected for Y Combinator's accelerator programme in January 2019.
• It intends to offer simpler investment options, similar to mutual funds and ETFs, to retail crypto investors who intend to stay invested in the long run.
• It currently has 25,000 active portfolio managers with more than $1 billion in trading on the platform.

An Indian crypto-asset management platform Mudrex wants to make investing in cryptocurrencies easier. And, it has raised $2.5 million, which is around ?18.5 crore, in a seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners. The venture firm has a plethora of investments in India, including Zomato, Unacademy, OLX, and many more.

Other investors include accelerator Village Global, co-founder of CRED Kunal Shah, veteran investor Anand Chandrashekharan, and founder of Avaana Capital Anjali Bansal. The company had previously raised $750,000 from Y Combinator, Better Capital, Woodstock Fund, and angels like Antler founder Nitin Sharma and Shaadi.com CEO Anupam Mittal.

Mudrex claims to be a crypto-based asset management company that offers products similar to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds ETFs. Instead of traditional stocks, these funds incorporate a host of crypto-assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even stablecoins.

The goal is to allow investors to pursue long-term wealth creation and offer a more straightforward approach to the crypto-curious amid volatility. “We [Mudrex] will achieve this through expanding our user community, providing superior tools to advanced portfolio managers, debunking myths about crypto trading as well as new product introductions like crypto indices, high yield crypto 'savings account', building out our mobile apps and more,” said co-founder and chief executive (CEO), Edul Patel.

According to him, the company has been growing at a rate of 30% every month and has users across 90 countries.



The fresh influx of capital will be used to scale up the team and operations, acquire global regulatory compliances, and create unique products.

The company aims to bring the finesse of the traditional stock market to the crypto segment and incorporate tools that ensure investors are protected in the long run. Mudrex is trying to integrate more straightforward investment methodologies such as mutual funds, index funds, and ETFs to encourage systemic investments.

Investors often end up losing a lot of money in the crypto market due to uncertainty, panic, and ever-increasing turbulence. Mudrex intends to glide over these shortcomings by curating new funds, assigning them a risk vs reward score, and providing more options to the end-user depending on their risk appetite, requirements, and goals.

The platform has a product called a ‘bundle’, which contains multiple trading strategies optimized to work together. Each algorithm is verified before getting published and undergoes strict risk-management protocols to ensure authenticity. A user can simply choose one of these bundles as a fund and invest with a minimum of $100. Fees are calculated based on the total sum invested, and investing in multiple bundles often helps in diversification.

It currently has 25,000 active portfolio managers with more than $1 billion in trading on the platform. It has over $15 million assets under management (AUM), which is around ? 110 crore.

Mudrex currently has partnerships with most of the top global cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, OKex, and Coinbase. And, a user needs to link their exchange account with Mudrex since it’s no longer an exchange, the transfer of assets is a necessity. Professional traders can create their own bundles too and start earning from the platform.

While Mudrex is trying to introduce asset management as a service in the crypto space right now, it started as a crypto exchange back in 2018. However, RBI's crackdown on cryptocurrencies spelt immediate bad news for the fledgling startup.

The team lead by Edul Patel, Rohit Goyal, Alankar Saxena, and Prince Arora managed to weather the storm and pivot into a fresh idea that could make retail crypto investing far easier. In January 2019, it was selected for Y Combinator's accelerator programme, and by March, it had touched 500 customers.

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