Juno is a Singapore-based Web3 crypto company that allows customers to create checking accounts using crypto assets. The company has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Parafi Capital. The new funding follows Juno’s 2019 startup seed round, where it raised $3 million from investors.
The announcement was made on 1 October. Juno’s Series A investors include 6th Man Ventures, Hashed, Sequoia India’s Surge, Greycroft, Jump Crypto, and Uncorrelated Fund. Juno co-founder and CEO Varun Deshpande told Tech Crunch reporter Manish Singh that the company had reached $1 billion in annual trading volume.
Varun said,
“We want to grow our tokenized loyalty in two ways. The first is by giving it to our community and growing it, and the second is through Juno Pay. For Juno Coin, we will create a partner network for redemption, including a ledger where people can burn it. We expect to grow ten-fold across our metrics in the next 12 months.”
The company has unveiled a new token called JCOIN. Juno dropped a new ERC20 token to over 70,000 Juno users. Funds from the latest funding round will expand the company’s team and loyalty program. JCOIN is used for exciting offers, collectibles, and in-app boosts redeemable via JCOIN only in the Juno Store.
Juno Makes Fund Transfers to other Exchanges Simpler
The platform works with significant payroll platforms in the US. Cryptocurrency customers do not need to worry about manually transferring funds to another exchange. Juno makes it easier to keep doubling bets without worrying. This provides customers with automated tax reporting via Form 1099, eliminating the need to place transactions manually and calculate profits.
The startup has raised $21 million to date. This is after the $18 million Series A fundraising and the company’s seed round in 2019. In 2019, investors that backed Juno were Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital, Sequoia Capital, Balaji Srinivasan, and Ryan Selkis.
An Indian Startup Finding Its Niche in the US Market
Juno’s journey has not been without any challenges. The first challenge was in finding a place in the US market. In the US, regulatory compliance takes a long time, a 10-12 month building process that started during the pandemic. Juno has convinced compliant banking partners on cryptocurrency and money investment.
Starting came from proposals to exchange US dollars for USDC and other cryptocurrencies. According to Varun, this is the first time it has been possible to own an FDIC-backed checking account and crypto assets.
“Developing a product out of India for the US market is not easy..Three former startup founders have taken to heart what they have learned to conquer a larger market. When building Juno, we focused on the US market, which is a huge market.”
Therefore, Juno has gone through quite a process. Seeing that the company is now picking up and doing well is inspiring.
