Juno, a startup that offers checking accounts to crypto enthusiasts and allows them to withdraw their paychecks in digital tokens, has expanded its offering to include a loyalty program and has taken on new funding.
The one-and-a-half-year-old startup has gathered more than 75,000 clients in the US, who regularly invest their salaries (some fully, partially severed) in digital assets every month.
Customers can use the startup’s MasterCard-powered debit card to withdraw cryptocurrencies, make bill payments, and easily move funds to traditional banks if desired. Juno offers direct access to clients from checking accounts to Layer 2 blockchains such as Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimum for zero fees.
The popular platform integrates with all popular payment platforms in the US, making it easy for long-time crypto-believers to double up on their bets without the hassle of manually transferring funds to different exchanges. It also offers customers automatic tax reporting on Form 1099, freeing them from having to manually check their transactions and calculate profitability.
On Saturday, Juno announced that it had raised $18 million in a Series A financing round. The fund was led by Parafi Capital Growth Fund and saw participation from multiple backers including Greycroft, Antler Global, Hashed, Jump Crypto, Mithril, 6th Person Ventures, Abstract Ventures and Unaffiliated Fund.
Juno — which also counts Sequoia India Surge, Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital, Consensys Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Surojit Chatterjee, Sandeep Nailwal and Ryan Selkis among its backers — has reached $1 billion in annual transaction volume, said Varun Deshpande, co-founder and CEO of Juno. He said in the interview.
“Crypto natives in the US are finding that existing banks are completely inadequate for everyday crypto use. We’re rebuilding checking accounts with basic crypto and Web3. Empowering Juno members to pay a portion of their paychecks in crypto and use crypto for everyday transactions like paying bills or buying coffee.” He said he would give.
An app known as Juno (Image credits: Juno)
Tokenized loyalty program
Juno, which raised $3 million in seed funding last year, is now ready for a new offering: an alternative loyalty program. The startup is introducing an ERC20 token called JCOIN, which will reward customers based on their usage if they choose. Remarkably, Juno’s co-founders, employees and investors do not take any classification to avoid conflicts of interest, a move comparable to the practice of a large number of industry players.
“We feel we need to distribute tokens to founders, investors and team members. Being a market participant with privileged information creates a lack of trust in the community in the long run,” Deshpande said.
“Our company’s path to success is continuing to build successful products, and our investors’ and team’s path remains an IPO,” he said.
Juno took a snapshot of customer usage on Friday and generated 150 million eligible tokens. Every dollar spent using the platform gives customers access to tokens. Overtime customers have to spend more to receive the same amount of tokens as rewards, he said.
The India-based startup is part of a growing wave of fintech and software companies building for global markets in the South Asian country. Before starting Juno, Deshpande and other co-founders — Ratnesh Ray and Siddharth Verma — worked on the Nuo protocol in 2019. They discontinued the protocol after two years to build something more compatible with the evolving regulatory environment.
Juno has a team that deeply understands both fintech and cryptocurrency. Seamlessly combining crypto and web3 in a checking account with an interface trusted and familiar to millions of Americans will help bring new users to web3,” said Ryan Navi, principal at Parafi Capital, in a statement.
“Their empathy for consumers and passion for creating new and beautiful crypto-native products with fundamental compliance makes Web 3 unique. They are creating an entirely new category at Neo Bank and we are excited to support them.”
