With the goal of becoming a one-stop-shop for investors seeking exposure to crypto assets, Bengaluru startup, Flint has raised a USD 5.1 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and GFC.
Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, IOSG, Better Capital and MSA Capital also participated in the round as part of 11 institutional investors.
Over 60 angel investors across the globe also participated in this funding round. Angel investors include:
● Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED)
● Sandeep Nailwal (Co-founder, Polygon)
● Jaynti Kanani (Co-founder, Polygon)
● Do Kwon (Founder, Terra)
● Nitin Gupta (Co-founder, Uni)
● Amulya Goyal (MD, Large global bank)
● Kunal Bahl (Co-founder, Snapdeal via Titan Capital)
● Rohit Bansal (Co-founder, Snapdeal via Titan Capital)
● Tanmay Bhat
● Sanat Rao (GP, Blocktower Capital)
● Abhishek Nag (Director, Netflix India)
● Ajit Tripathi (Head of business at Aave)
● Marc Bhargava (Strategy, Coinbase)
● Mahdi Raza (Ex-Robinhood)
The fresh capital will accelerate bringing early users on board, enhance the product based on early feedback, and hire for senior positions across engineering, design and product functions. Flint also plans to allocate a significant portion of the funding to strengthen legal and risk functions, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory norms, while also going above and beyond market standards to reduce business risk. Flint is a part of a new class of crypto startups that aims to offer a unique investment opportunity to investors beyond buying and selling crypto, enabling them to earn passive income in a convenient manner.
Founded in October 2021, the company currently offers a simple and stable income opportunity where users can earn up to 13% p.a. on their deposited funds. Flint doesn’t expose users to volatile crypto assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum. It only deals with stable cryptocurrencies like USDT, USDC, etc., that are free from crypto price fluctuations. As such, Flint removes all the complexities for its customers via an easy-to-use mobile app and offers simple exposure to crypto. Flint also provides the flexibility of having no ‘lock-in period’ where users can withdraw their funds at any time without any fees.
The company is taking a UX first approach for the retail users and building easy on-ramps.
Anshu Agrawal, Co-Founder of Flint, said, “Flint’s mission is to make cryptocurrencies easy and accessible to everyone. We are at the tip of the iceberg and the opportunity that Web3 provides for the world is massive. As a brand, we simply intend to demystify crypto, provide easy-to-use products, and introduce a billion people to our inevitable future, ensuring Web3 becomes a part of our everyday lives. We also want to thank all our investors for placing their trust in us, our mission, and for joining hands with an aim to make Flint the first-choice crypto app across the globe, where users can earn high and stable yields on their crypto assets via plenty of investment opportunities".
“Just the way billions of people were on-boarded onto the internet in the last decade, billions of users will be on boarded onto web3.0 in the next few years. We believe Anshu, Akshit and the Flint team bring the right background in building consumer products as well as the web3 DNA that can enable massive distribution, and offer best-in-class and easy-to-understand financial products to its users”. Aakash Kapoor, VP, Sequoia India.
Flint founders, Akshit Bordia and Anshu Agrawal, who were previously product managers at CRED, started operations in January, offering simple diversification to crypto with returns of up to 13% per annum without any lock-in period.
After a period of deep research and conversations with over 300 consumers, Flint first mapped the various segments of users interested in crypto and identified where its ideal users belong. The platform targets users in the age group of 25 to 40, who are looking to diversify a portion of their wealth into crypto, are financially stable but lack the time to invest in understanding the complexities and fundamentals of the crypto market. Currently, the users are primarily from tier-1 cities, who earn more than USD 15,000 per annum. They regularly use payment and investment apps, have been investing in mutual funds or other asset classes, are looking for simplicity, long holding periods and a credible brand.
Furthermore, Flint plans to roll out their ‘up to 13% interest’ offering to users on the early access list and aims to quickly scale to a million users from there on. Having started the operations in India, Flint will be opening access to international users very soon and expand the product offerings to bring more investment opportunities for users in the upcoming months. An integral part of Flint’s mission is to educate the market about the basics of cryptocurrency, its benefits and associated risks as well. For that, it plans to invest heavily in producing good content for its already running YouTube channel called ‘Learn With Flint’.