Mochatrade raises $6M to offer US stock perpetuals to Indian traders

Mochatrade has raised approximately $6 million to bring something unusual to Indian retail traders: leveraged, always-on bets on US stocks, funded in rupees. CoinFund led the seed round. Coinbase Ventures joined, along with Nicky Montana, general partner at Zero Knowledge Ventures. Mochatrade announced the raise on Monday. The money, and how some of it arrived The total includes an earlier pre-seed round worth $690,000. That round was backed by Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund. The most crypto-native detail is how the accelerator paid. Y Combinator’s $500,000 check landed earlier this month entirely in USDC on Base, according to co-founder and chief product officer Chetan Manda, who spoke to The Block. USDC is a dollar-pegged stablecoin. Base is Coinbase’s blockchain network. Translation: one of Silicon Valley’s best-known startup programs funded a company with digital dollars instead of a bank wire. What Mochatrade actually sells Mochatrade offers perpetual futures, often called perps, through a mobile app. Think of a perp as a bet on a price that never expires. You don’t own the stock. You hold a contract that tracks it, and you can keep that position open as long as you want. The p...