Truss aims to be an all-in-one platform that helps even novice users save, spend and invest in cryptocurrencies. The Singapore-based startup has announced that it has raised $18 million through Accel A Financing led by Accel and Quona Capital in partnership with Elevation Capital and Jump Capital.
The app currently has over 75,000 users in over 60 countries. It supports 10 digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Axie Infinity and USD-backed stablecoins USDC and USDT, and plans to expand to more than 50 assets in the coming months.
In the year Founded in 2021 by Arindam Roy, Rajath KM and Kartik Mishra, the company will focus on emerging markets such as Africa and Southeast Asia. According to the founders, since the beginning of the year, the user base has increased by 300%, assets under management will grow by 5x. It has also recently expanded to Nigeria, Ghana and Vietnam among other markets.
Prior to founding Pillow, Roy and KM explored Web3 while holding jobs in the traditional financial industry, working at authentication and AML software vendor HyperVirge. At this point, the two started a Discord server on the side for people to ride on Web3, which eventually reached over 15,000 people.
“We’ve seen a repeat of a pattern of problems,” the two told TechCrunch. “People don’t know how to pay gas bills, they don’t know how to connect to different blockchains, people don’t know what kind of transactions are approved and they end up losing their money.”
Around this time, the two met Mishra, the business head of Indian delivery startup Dunzo, and started talking about how to scale the onboarding problem.
“Ultimately, we understand that the challenge is that today’s crypto transactions don’t fit the mental model of how retail users perceive transactions. You need a strong technical background to successfully trade in crypto,” they said.
As a result, the pillow is born to understand the use of crypto.
To do this, the Pillow team must address two big issues. The first is perception, because most people still think that crypto is only buying and selling Bitcoin, without understanding other use cases. The second is complexity, because using crypto fully means understanding gas fees, blockchain technology, and bridging. “Someone who just wants to trade doesn’t add to this learning curve,” he said.
Pillow solves these problems by using crypto investments and transactions in one click, quick exchange and saving with one click daily interest savings. It plans to do the same for other crypto services like payments.
To use Pillow for the first time, people register using their email accounts and provide KYC information such as live selfie photos and national ID cards. After that, they will receive a brief education about the risks of investing in digital assets before choosing which ones they want to save or invest in. They will receive another education about the potential risks of the asset before their first investment.
After that, they can deposit cryptocurrency from their own wallet or another cryptocurrency platform by transferring it to the crypto wallet address shown on the pillow. In some countries, Truss partners with local, compliant ramp service providers, so users can also buy fiat currency crypto locally. Truss supports deposits and withdrawals through local partnerships in Nigeria, the Philippines and Vietnam, with plans to expand further in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America with the new funding.
The startup’s largest user base is in Nigeria, and it has significant presence in India, Ghana and Vietnam and growing user bases in Brazil, Philippines and Sri Lanka. It focuses on retail investors, allowing them to start with investments as low as $5.
Pillow’s users come from different geographies and its closest competitors come from all over the world. They include crypto exchange Luno in Africa, multi-asset exchange Pluang (another Asil investment) in Southeast Asia and global crypto savings app Nexo. The founders of Pillow said it aims to become a comprehensive home for digital asset-based financial services, enabling users to find, save, spend and invest from the same platform even for the first time.
Tras is currently in the development phase and plans to introduce new product exchanges and transaction fees including real-world assets. It offers a profit on the returns of 5% to 10.42% currently accessible to users. The pillow accounts for a small percentage of the resulting circulation, and another portion goes into the production pool.
