Black box trading has long been used by traders in the financial markets. Traders establish a set of buy and sell rules based on pre-programmed logic and the “black box” monitors the market and automatically initiates trades when the defined conditions are met. Programmatic trading comprises the majority of trading on the major exchanges. Coinrule’s platform brings similar functionality to crypto trading. Traders can set up automated trades based on 150+ predefined conditions or even customize their own parameters to directly trade on the most popular crypto exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. With the crypto markets operating 24/7, the automation also serves as a risk management tool. The company offers several monthly tiers ranging from free to $449/mo. Coinrule, a graduate of Y Combinator, is quickly approaching 100K traders on its platform that have traded $1B of cryptocurrencies.
London TechWatch caught up with Coinrule Cofounder Oleg Giberstein to learn more about the state of crypto trading, the company’s future plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $3.5M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a Seed Round of $2.2M. Investors included Y Combinator, Urban Innovation Fund, some of the founders of Twitch, Fitbit, Kayak and Eight Sleep, NZ VC, Zilliqa Capital, and a few other funds and angels.
Tell us about your product or service.
Coinrule helps retail investors automate their crypto investments. We are London-based and have close to 100,000 traders on the platform with nearly $1 billion in traded volume.
What inspired the start of Coinrule?
We were looking for solutions to automate a particular trading strategy. After a search online it quickly became apparent that there was no solution that really allowed for simple trading rule automations. We then started working on what became Coinrule.
How is it different?
Existing platforms either offer ‘black box’ solutions that run very specific strategies or are highly complex products made for professional traders. Coinrule really makes it easy to automate strategies with an If-this-then-that style trading interface.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Coinrule targets the beginner to intermediate trading market. Our users are young professional millennials in their thirties who are looking for ways to manage their funds more actively. With the rise of retail trading on platforms like Robinhood and Free Trade, this has become a $100 billion+ market.
What’s your business model?
We charge users a simple and flat monthly subscription fee.
What are your post-COVID office plans??
The company is fully remote and will remain so. We host company offsites every 3 months.
What was the funding process like?
Fairly quick. Thanks to the visibility of being in Y Combinator and also Coinrule’s strong traction data we were able to receive a lot of inbound interest throughout the summer and close the round fairly quickly in August.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge was actually to turn down a lot of really good investors who had contacted us after Y Combinator’s Demo Day. The round was heavily oversubscribed, and we were not able to give out even small allocations.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The brand recognition thanks to Y Combinator and our growth numbers of on average >40% M-o-M growth between November 2020 and September 2021.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We are onboarding additional developers to focus heads-down on releasing key features including the Backtesting which will allow users to test strategies on historical data and a Rules Marketplace.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Focus on getting paying customers through the door. Even if your product is far from ready or polished, nothing beats the learnings you get from actual paying users. Maximise your learnings, optimise the product for these early users and then start building traction from that initial tribe.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Over the near term, we are working hard on releasing new features and making the product better whilst growing Coinrule’s community. The next few months will be busy but exciting!
What’s your favourite outdoor activity in London?
Playing football and also hiking.
