Creating startup in crypto is difficult: 40u40 2024 Sumit Gupta, CoinDCX

CoinDCX CEO & Co-founder Sumit Gupta shares his story on why he left his first job at electronics and technology giant Sony in 2014, and built a startup in crypto space. Gupta, along with his IIT-Bombay mate Neeraj Khandelwal, formed CoinDCX in 2018, which became India's first cryptocurrency exchange to achieve a 'Unicorn' status.

“The turning point of my career was leaving my first job at Sony and coming back to India and jumping into the world of entrepreneurship. I have always dreamt of building something from India and doing something of my own. When I took that plunge after that the journey was rewarding, fulfilling, and very exciting,” says Sumit in an interaction with Fortune India.

Recalling his entrepreneurial journey Sumit said, “The most difficult part of my journey was to build in the world of crypto. The starting phase is generally difficult for all startups but doing a startup in crypto space is much more difficult than I have ever imagined.” According to him, raising funds and hiring people was very difficult in early days but industry perception changed after 2021.

“I remember when we were starting up, it was difficult to raise our first round and it took us months and months of effort to convince even one investor to invest in CoinDCX. Hiring was a tougher job as it was difficult for us to convince our early set up of employees to come and join.”

“Before 2021 we had a user base in lakh but during that phase, we did a lot of work on educating the masses and campaigning around education and investments in crypto as an asset class. During that time nobody knew what CoinDCX was but by the end of 2021 whenever I went to any airport or conference everyone was equating crypto with CoinDCX. This was the drastic change that I have seen in just a matter of one year and I realised that crypto is something that is now reaching every corner of the country and CoinDCX has played a huge role in making that happen.”

Starting with a team of five, CoinDCX has seen remarkable growth in a short span of 6 years from a small crypto exchange to becoming India's largest and most sought-after platform with a user base of over 1.4 crore and a workforce of 500 plus spread across India. Last valued at $2.15 billion in 2022, the company, which competes with CoinSwitch and Unocoin in India and Binance and Gemini globally, has raised a total of $247 million in six funding rounds till date and entered the unicorn club in 2021.