Juno, an India-based crypto digital banking firm, announced on Saturday that it has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by the ParaFi Capital Growth Fund.

Other participants also included prominent figures from the crypto industry such as Coinbase Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee, Messari’s Ryan Selkis, Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani, a16z’s Sriram Krishnan, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Venu Palaparthi. from FTX.

Juno said it plans to use the new funds to expand its tokenized product line, business operations, team and loyalty program. The firm said that its upcoming loyalty token, the Juno coin (JCOIN), will only be distributed to verified account holders. The loyalty program will be similar to reward points on traditional credit cards. According to the firm, the loyalty program will allow Juno members to receive their paychecks in crypto or spend crypto with their Juno debit card and earn JCOIN while using the program.

Varun Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of Juno, spoke about the development: “We believe that these banks do not support cryptocurrencies. The goal of the loyalty program is to incentivize those who are already predisposed to use crypto to fundamentally replace their traditional banking stack.”

Based in India, June currently has 80 people working for the company, 75 in India and 5 in the US The company plans to expand its US team to 25 people and the overall team to 150 people in the next 12 months .

Crypto VCs continue to splash funds

Even after Bitcoin is down nearly 70% from its all-time high in late 2021, venture capital activities at cryptocurrency and blockchain startups have remained busy as ever. So far this year, venture capital investments in the landscape have reached $18.3 billion as of July. That almost triples the amount invested in 2020 and is also on track to surpass the 2021 record mark of $32.4 billion.

Some of the crypto fundraising rounds this year have been large. In January, Fireblocks raised $550 million at a valuation of $8 billion. In March, Yuga Labs raised $450 million at a $4 billion valuation. In July, blockchain startup Aptos Labs raised $150 million in a round led by FTX and many more.

That comes despite the ongoing crypto winter that has left several crypto firms such as Coinbase, Crypto.com, BlockFi, and OpenSea, among others, announcing massive layoffs of their workforce in the past three months. And others like Three Arrows Capital, Celsius Network and Voyager Digital recently filed for bankruptcy protection.

VC money is flowing into areas (such as blockchain infrastructure, Web3, NFTs, and blockchain-based gaming) that are likely to see growth once the dust settles in the crypto markets.

Image Source: Shutterstock