Mochatrade, an Indian-focused trading platform backed by Y Combinator, has raised $5.56m to offer perpetual futures linked to the prices of US stocks.
CoinFund led the seed round, which also included Coinbase Ventures and Nicky Montana, general partner at Zero Knowledge Ventures, the company said on Monday. Mochatrade closed the round in July, according to co-founder and chief product officer Chetan Manda.
Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund provided $690,000 in pre-seed funding. Y Combinator’s $500,000 contribution was made earlier this month entirely in USDC stablecoin on Base, Manda told The Block. Mochatrade announced the pre-seed round in May but did not disclose its value at the time.
Both rounds were raised through post-money simple agreements for future equity, or SAFEs. Manda said the company had no valuation to disclose because neither investment was a priced equity round.
Trading US shares without a US brokerage account
Mochatrade allows users in India to deposit rupees through the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, and trade contracts based on companies including Nvidia, Tesla and Apple.
Users can take leveraged positions on whether US stock prices will rise or fall without owning the underlying shares or opening a US brokerage account, Manda said.
Comparable products are available on Hyperliquid and Indian crypto exchanges including CoinDCX, Delta and CoinSwitch. However, Manda said those platforms were not designed specifically for Indian equity traders seeking exposure to US stocks.
“Neither is built for an Indian equity trader who wants to trade U.S. stocks: the offshore venues run on dollar stablecoin balances, and the Indian exchanges do not focus their marketing and positioning on U.S. equities; they focus on crypto,” he said. “Existing U.S.-stock apps for Indian users are built for buying and holding shares. (Eg: INDmoney, VestedFinance).”
“Mochatrade is built for U.S. stock token trading: users fund in rupees through UPI, go long or short on U.S. stock prices with leverage, and withdraw in rupees,” Manda added.
The company operates in India through ALSD Technologies Private Limited, which holds FIU-IND registration under reference number VA00049752, according to Manda.
Mochatrade is currently in beta, with early access being rolled out. More than 20,000 people are on its waitlist, and the public launch is expected in the coming weeks.
Options and further expansion planned
The platform earns fees from trades and has no plans to issue a token “as of now”, Manda said. The new funding will be used for trading technology and customer growth.
Mochatrade also intends to introduce US stock options, additional assets and social trading features, subject to applicable laws and regulatory approvals.
Manda founded the company with chief executive Utkarsh Sinha and chief technology officer Parth Maheshwari. They began building Mochatrade in April 2026 and joined Y Combinator’s Spring 2026 batch. The three met at IIT and have been friends for 10 years.
Sinha previously co-founded and led Martian Wallet, which recorded more than 2 million installs across over 50 countries before being acquired last year by Pontem Network, a product studio for Move-based blockchains. Manda was previously director of product management at Sprinklr, while Maheshwari worked at Adobe and Navi.
Mochatrade has 11 full-time employees, with its core team divided between New York and Bangalore. It plans to expand its operations, engineering and growth teams, while its board currently consists of the three founders.
