Crypto-native banking platform Juno raises $18Mn in fresh funding

Juno said it plans to use the funds to expand its digital banking products and launch a tokenized loyalty program, backed by its native ERC20 token, JCOIN.

Bengaluru-based crypto-native banking platform Juno has raised $18 Mn in a Series A funding round led by ParaFi Capital’s Growth Fund. This is Juno’s second institutional funding round, having raised $3 Mn in seed funding from the likes of Sequoia and Polygon three years ago. The startup has raised $21mn from investors in total to date. Juno said it plans to use the funds to expand its digital banking products and launch a tokenized loyalty program, backed by its native ERC20 token, JCOIN.

Founded in 2019 by Ratnesh Ray, Siddharth Verma, and Varun Deshpande, Juno has three primary products related to banking, crypto on-ramp and off-ramp payments solution and its loyalty program.

Juno’s digital banking solution is a checking account that allows users to buy crypto directly from the platform. The startup enables that by an on-ramp transaction to Layer 2 blockchains like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, charging zero processing fees. The digital banking platform also provides a debit card, Juno Card, for day-to-day transactions.

The startup’s latest product is its tokenized loyalty program. Juno has integrated JCOIN into the loyalty program and rewards users with JCOIN on transactions made via its checking account. According to Juno’s website, the token can be earned by making either fiat or crypto transactions.

Juno coins can be redeemed for discounts, rebates, and access across the startup’s partner network. According to the startup, its banking platform is processing over $1 Bn in annualized transaction volume. Juno claims to have recorded a 10X growth in the number of customers in the last nine months.

Juno’s funding and loyalty program come at a time when crypto startups are facing uncertainty from a regulatory standpoint. India has adopted a stringent taxation regime and also introduced TDS on crypto transactions.

The taxation has also impacted adoption rates in the country, as India slipped to the fourth spot on the Global Crypto Adoption Index in 2022. Besides, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently informed the Parliament that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested banning cryptocurrencies in the country.