At a glance

  • Mochatrade has raised $5.56 million (about ₹52.9 crore / €5.0 million) in total, The Block reported on Monday. CoinFund led the seed round, with Coinbase Ventures and Nicky Montana of Zero Knowledge Ventures.
  • The app offers perpetual contracts on US stock tokens, margined and settled in rupees paid in and out over UPI, India’s instant payments system.
  • Mochatrade says it is registered with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND) as a virtual digital asset service provider, under registration number VA00049752.

The total includes a $690,000 pre-seed round (about ₹6.6 crore / €0.62 million) from Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund, The Block said. The seed round closed in July and was raised on SAFEs, The Block said.

Y Combinator’s $500,000 (about ₹4.8 crore / €0.45 million) arrived this month in USDC, a dollar stablecoin, on Coinbase’s Base network, co-founder Chetan Manda told The Block. CoinFund also announced that it led the round.

Conversions use ECB reference rates for 26 Oct 2026. CryptoWatchDesk has not seen the funding documents.

What the app sells

A perpetual contract, or perp, tracks a price and has no expiry date. On Mochatrade, users never own the share. They trade a contract that follows a stock token, long or short, according to the company’s website.

The site lists more than 50 US stock tokens and leverage of up to 50 times. At that level, a 2% move against a position can wipe out the margin. Crypto Briefing reported that the platform also offers pre-IPO names and runs on Hyperliquid, the trading chain that plans permissioned markets for regulated firms.

The app is in beta with more than 20,000 people on its waitlist, and a public launch is planned in the coming weeks, Manda told The Block. See what tokenised stocks are for how stock tokens differ from shares.

How the company reads Indian rules

Mochatrade’s FAQ says that “VDA derivative trading is legal in India”, that its contracts are VDA derivatives, and that FEMA and LRS limits on sending money abroad do not apply because users deposit and trade only in rupees.

It also says profits are taxed as ordinary business income, not at the 30% flat rate with 1% TDS that applies to VDA transfers. These are the company’s own readings. Our guide covers India’s crypto tax and FIU registration rules.

Why it matters: the pitch takes Indian retail money into leveraged US equity exposure through a crypto licence rather than a securities one. Regulators elsewhere in Asia are wary of the model; Korea’s financial regulators warned investors about offshore perpetuals linked to Korean stocks this month.

What’s still unclear

CryptoWatchDesk has not seen any statement from the RBI or SEBI on the product. It is also not clear how the Income Tax Department will treat perps on stock tokens.

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This article is for information only and is not investment advice.