Cryptocurrencies lending platform Vauld has raised USD 2 million from a clutch of investors, including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, CMT digital, Gumi Cryptos Capital, LuneX Ventures, Robert Leshner (CEO of Compound Finance) and Tarun Chaitra’s Robot Ventures, CoinShares, Better Capital, New Form Capital, Jesus Rodrigues (the CEO of IntoTheBlock) and others.

The Singapore-based company said it aims to deploy the fresh capital to expand operations in India and other countries. It added that it plans to double down on engineering talent (plan to 3x hiring) and opening offices across the country.

“Hiring is the focus of the hour in the Indian market”, said Sanju Sony Kurian, Vauld’s co-founder and CTO.

Led by two Indian entrepreneurs Darshan Bathija and Sanju Sony Kurian, Vauld is a cryptocurrency bank and exchange that offers crypto lending and crypto borrowing solutions. The platform enables customers to lend, borrow and trade their crypto assets from one unified platform.

Vauld raised this round to expand from being an India-focused crypto platform to a holistic DEFI platform which now also includes payments, credit and trading. “We finally see institutional capital come into India’s fintech ecosystem with the expectation of banking integrations that complement existing crypto credit offerings,” said Darshan Bathija, CEO, Vauld.

This funding round marks Vauld’s second fundraise this year. The company raised funds from LuneX Ventures and a few India-based angel investors in June. Vauld claims to have grown 10x since then. The company said it expects to see higher all-time highs in the market as cryptocurrencies continue to gain in popularity and more people see them as one of the best hedges against weakening economies and fiat currencies.

“Vauld’s vision to make cryptocurrency the preferred instrument of banking by making it simple to use and interoperable with the current banking infrastructure is what we are excited about” says Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital.