In 2017, the team at CoinTracker began “tinkering” with cryptocurrency.
CoinTracker writes in a blog post that they set up accounts on several different exchanges and started using a bunch of digital wallets.
The company points out that while exchanges and virtual wallets have made it “reasonably” easy to purchase, hold, and transact with crypto in a secure manner, it was fairly challenging to understand what their portfolios looked like, and almost impossible to adhere to applicable tax rules and regulations.
CoinTracker also shared that they tried to use spreadsheets and also attempted to use all the software out there. However, to their frustration, they were “cryptic, took hours to set up & maintain, or simply didn’t work at all.” The company also noted that they thought to themselves, “this is digitally-native money — there’s gotta be a better way.”
That’s when they set out to create CoinTracker with the goal of increasing the world’s financial freedom and “prosperity.”
Diving into the crypto space made it clear to them that CoinTracker needs to be “seamless, accurate, and provide year-round value.”
The team also revealed that they focused on enabling users to “connect their crypto exchanges and wallets and then built software to do the heavy lifting and handle the complexity for users.”
At present, more than 3% of the cryptocurrency market is “tracked on CoinTracker.” They synchronize more than $50B in digital assets daily. Users get a unified view of their portfolio as they transact with virtual currencies, and “importantly accurate and optimized taxes.”
As noted by the firm:
“The crypto space has grown tremendously over the past few years. There are now over 200M crypto users globally. We are seeing a Cambrian explosion of innovation happening, and consumers and businesses are transacting with crypto across a range of exchanges and wallets. Crypto is used widely and deeply for use cases spanning store of value, payments, DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and web3 more broadly. And we’re still early.”
The company added:
“This level of adoption has led to more confusion and difficulty in tracking crypto assets and complying with tax rules. With the passing of the Infrastructure Bill in the US, there is now increased urgency in enabling the industry to become tax compliant. To ensure continued adoption of crypto it’s imperative to enable every user to comply with taxes.”
They also mentioned that their vision is to create that platform that ‘just works’ and enables users to “freely use every part of crypto without the burden of manually tracking their assets and complying with taxes.” They believe this is vital for the successful adoption of crypto and is “core to [their] mission.”
In order to help realize this vision, the team is pleased to confirm that they’ve secured $100M in Series A funding from various partners.
As confirmed in a blog post, Accel, General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, 776 Ventures, and Y Combinator “bring a wealth of experience helping build the most iconic tech companies in history.”
Investments from Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, and Intuit Ventures are “a recognition of our shared mission to help ensure every crypto user can have access to seamless tax compliance and portfolio tracking.”
Angel investors include Garry Tan, Alexis Ohanian, Claire Hughes Johnson, Gokul Rajaram, Jeremy Liew, and Alex Bouaziz. They are all teaming up with CoinTracker, the company revealed.