CoinSwitch Ventures goes global as BlackLane Capital, plans to back startups with cheques of up to $5 million

CoinSwitch is widening its investment ambitions beyond crypto. The company’s investment arm, CoinSwitch Ventures, is rebranding as BlackLane Capital and will back early-stage companies across fintech, enterprise infrastructure, new-age consumer applications and digital assets, with investments of up to $5 million.

The independent global investment firm aims to enable more than $100 million in startup funding over the next five years through its own investments and a wider network of founders, investors and strategic partners.

The shift marks a significant expansion from CoinSwitch Ventures’ original Web3 mandate. Established as a platform focused on Web3, blockchain and token projects, the fund has backed more than 26 startups, including Stan, Deconflict, Yousend and Uniblock.


BlackLane Capital will retain digital assets as one of its investment areas but will no longer be defined by a single technology category.

“Good founders and good businesses are not confined to any one sector,” Ashish Singhal, co-founder of CoinSwitch, told ET Markets. “The fundamentals of building a company remain remarkably similar: you need to solve a real problem, understand your customer, build a strong team and execute consistently.”

From Web3 to a broader technology mandate

Singhal said the decision to rebrand followed the fund’s experience working with founders in an emerging technology ecosystem.

“As we worked with founders, we realised that we could bring the same experience and perspective to businesses beyond Web3,” he said. “BlackLane Capital reflects that evolution. It gives us the flexibility to back founders across enterprise, consumer, fintech, infrastructure and digital assets, without being defined by a single technology category.”

The wider mandate will focus on companies that address large markets and demonstrate the potential to scale across geographies.

Technology, Singhal said, is now being applied to a broader set of problems across financial services, infrastructure, consumer businesses and new digital categories.

“That creates a much wider universe of companies worth backing early,” he said. “We want to back founders early, help them navigate the difficult stages of building a company and build a portfolio of businesses that can grow well beyond their first market.”

The firm said it will combine capital with strategic support, operating experience, industry relationships and access to investor networks. Support for portfolio companies will include product and business strategy, partnerships and subsequent fundraising, including participation in follow-on rounds where appropriate.

Web3 remains part of the strategy

The rebranding does not represent an exit from Web3 or digital assets, according to Singhal. “We are not moving away from Web3,” he said. “It is where we began our investing journey, and we continue to see opportunities in the space.”

The experience of investing in Web3 has also influenced how BlackLane evaluates emerging technology businesses, particularly in markets where the potential is substantial but the path to a sustainable business is still developing.

“Technology does not evolve in neat categories,” Singhal said. “AI is changing how software is built, fintech is changing how financial services are delivered, and enterprise infrastructure is becoming increasingly important as businesses adopt new technologies.”

For BlackLane Capital, the technology itself will be only one part of the investment decision. Customer adoption, distribution and business economics will also be central to its approach.

“Having built a technology business ourselves, I am interested in founders who can identify a meaningful problem and build a commercially viable solution around it,” Singhal said. “The underlying technology matters, but so do customer adoption, distribution and the economics of the business.”

Global founders and AI-led expansion

Pratyush Shah, investment head at BlackLane Capital, said the fund’s Web3 origins had given it an international orientation from the start.

“Our Web3 roots gave us a global outlook from the very beginning,” Shah said. “We were looking at founders and businesses across markets early on, which allowed us to build relationships across geographies and develop a strong network that continues to give us access to founders and opportunities globally.”

The firm is particularly interested in startups being built for international markets from the outset.

“Today, we are seeing a growing number of ambitious companies built with global markets in mind from the outset, particularly as AI lowers the barriers to building and scaling technology businesses across borders,” Shah said.

That theme will be a focus for BlackLane as it looks for founders with ambitions beyond their first market.

The firm will draw on the wider PeepalCo ecosystem to give founders access to operating experience, business relationships and investor networks alongside funding.

CoinSwitch turns profitable in FY26

The expansion comes as CoinSwitch strengthens its financial position. The company turned profitable in FY26, while revenue more than doubled year-on-year.

CoinSwitch has raised more than $300 million and said its financial position allows it to invest in the next generation of businesses while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital deployment.

The company operates a crypto investing and trading platform serving more than 2 crore users in India. Founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Vimal Sagar Tiwari and Govind Soni, CoinSwitch is backed by global investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Peak XV Partners and Paradigm.

For BlackLane Capital, the rebranding is intended to separate the investment platform from CoinSwitch’s operating identity while retaining the experience, relationships and ecosystem built through the company.

“For me, this is less about changing our identity and more about expanding what we can do,” Singhal said. “We want to partner with ambitious founders, understand the problems they are solving and help them build businesses that can stand the test of time.”