Mochatrade lands $6M seed to bring leveraged US stock bets to Indian traders
What's the deal? MochatradeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised $6 million in a seed round led by CoinFundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to let Indian retail traders make leveraged, always-on bets on US stocks, funded in rupees. Coinbase Ventures, Nicky Montana, Pioneer FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Y Combinator also participated.
What's the endgame? The company sells perpetual futures — contracts that track an asset's price without expiry — through a mobile app. It lists more than 50 US stocks, plus commodities, indices, select crypto assets, and pre-IPO names such as SpaceX and Anthropic, with leverage up to 50 times.
How does it work? Traders deposit rupees through UPI, India's instant payments system, with no US brokerage account or foreign remittance required. The contracts are structured as crypto-based derivatives, not securities trades — the classification that makes rupee funding possible.
Who's behind it? Mochatrade was founded in New York in 2026 by three IIT alumni: Utkarsh Sinha, Chetan Manda, and Parth Maheshwari. They previously built Martian Wallet, which reached 2 million installs and processed over $2 billion in volume before it was acquired.
What could go wrong? Indian residents face restrictions on remitting funds for overseas derivatives or margin trading, so the model depends on a clear, lawful operating route. Mochatrade is registered as a Virtual Digital Asset Service Provider with India's Financial Intelligence Unit, positioning its futures within local rules for virtual digital asset derivatives.
The signal: The round ranks in the 91st percentile by size among all-time US fintech seed deals, a strong bet on a potentially large market. It fits a broader push — Coinbase and others have launched perpetual products tied to stocks and commodities — but for Mochatrade, compliance rather than product novelty will decide whether it can serve Indian traders at scale.
Read more: cryptobriefing.com
Image credit: Mochatrade
