Mochatrade has raised $5.56 million to give Indian traders a way to bet on U.S. stock prices using rupees, without owning the shares.
Its upcoming launch will pave the way for the entry of increased retail activity into round-the-clock equity derivatives. This will make it possible to trade at times when the U.S. markets are closed while exposing traders to more risks.
CoinFund backs rupee-based trading platform
CoinFund led the seed round, joined by Coinbase Ventures and Nicky Montana of Zero Knowledge Ventures, The Block reported. Co-founder and chief product officer Chetan Manda said it closed in July.
Before that, Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund had backed a $690,000 pre-seed round. Y Combinator provided its $500,000 investment in October 2026, paying in USDC on Base. Neither round disclosed a valuation, as both were structured through post-money SAFEs.
Manda launched Mochatrade in April 2026 with CEO Utkarsh Sinha and CTO Parth Maheshwari. The three joined Y Combinator’s Spring 2026 batch. The platform now has more than 20,000 people on its waitlist and expects to launch publicly in the next few weeks.
Rupees in, rupees out, no U.S. shares in between
Through Mochatrade, users can deposit and withdraw rupees using India’s UPI system. They can take long or short positions on contracts linked to more than 50 U.S. stocks, including Nvidia, Tesla and Apple, with leverage up to 50x. These perpetual contracts confer no share ownership or dividends.
Manda distinguished the platform from traditional investment apps:
“Existing U.S.-stock apps for Indian users are built for buying and holding shares.”
Fast growth meets concentrated liquidity
On October 26, DefiLlama reported a perpetual DEX trading volume of around $12.9 billion within a span of 24 hours, with an open interest of $13.5 billion.
In addition, perpetuals in public equities are gaining prominence. As per a different RWA tracker by DefiLlama, the open interest in the latter category is close to $9 billion with respect to centralized and decentralized exchanges. However, the two trackers are used to measure different markets, and as a result, the numbers cannot be combined.
The growing interest in equity perpetuals was already evident months earlier. Cryptopolitan reported in July that public equity was establishing itself as a crucial part of new perpetual market activity.
However, the level of trading activity is still concentrated. CoinGecko’s analysis from September reveals that only 10 assets represented 76.6% of the volume of tokenized equity trades, and there are just two platforms that account for more than 70% of open positions.
More trading from India could help establish clearer prices while U.S. exchanges are closed and attract market makers to overnight trading. But if orders are spread across too many platforms, liquidity could thin out, price gaps could widen, and traders could face sudden liquidations. At up to 50x leverage, even a small price movement could mean heavy losses.
Regulatory limits and retail losses
Mochatrade says its Indian operating company, ALSD Technologies Private Limited, is registered with FIU-IND. That means it must follow anti-money-laundering rules, but it does not mean regulators have approved its trading products.
In September, India’s finance ministry announced notices against 15 virtual-asset providers and warned that crypto users may have no regulatory recourse if they suffer losses.
The risks of retail derivatives trading are already evident in India. SEBI found that 87.7% of individual equity-derivatives traders lost money after costs in FY2025–26. Although the study did not cover Mochatrade customers, its findings highlight the potential dangers of highly leveraged trading.
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