FTX Raises $900M in Largest Funding Round in Crypto History
Coinspeaker
FTX Raises $900M in Largest Funding Round in Crypto History
Setting up a new milestone in the history of the crypto industry, crypto derivatives platform FTX raised a massive $900 billion in the Series B funding round. The announcement came on Tuesday, July 20, as the fundraise happens at $18 billion valuations.
The new funding will also help in fueling FTX’s growth in the global market. Besides, the official announcement notes that over 60 investors participating in the recent fundraise. This includes the likes of Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Paradigm, Sino Global Capital, the Paul Tudor Jones family, and others.
Over the last year, FTX has registered a 15x growth in the market. Valued at just $1.2 billion in 2020, the crypto derivatives platform now pegs over $18 billion valuations. Currently, FTX caters to $10 billion in daily trading volumes. Besides, the exchange has increased its revenue 10x this year so far and more than 75x since the Series A funding in mid-2020.
Launched just two years back in May 2019, FTX has set up a unique customer base despite competition from giants like Coinbase and Binance. It differentiates itself from the top players by offering advanced functionality and sophisticated products even to inexperienced market players. It serves all classes of crypto trading participants from retail to crypto trading investors.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the 29-year-old founder and CEO of FTX said that the company will deploy a large part of this raised amount in the funding round into acquisitions. Last year in August, FTX snapped up popular portfolio tracking app Blockfolio for $150 million.
Is FTX Making It Way to Wall Street with Its Successful Funding Round?
Registering such stellar growth in just two years, the crypto community is curious if FTX will take the Coinbase route of public listing. Speaking to Forbes, Bankmen-Fried said:
“This is something we’re going to be actively thinking about and we don’t know how this is going to end exactly. So what we want to do is put ourselves in a position where we can do it if we want to [and] we are ready. There’s no “ticking clock on our need to go public.”
Setting up an ultra-bullish milestone for the long-term the FTX CEO intends to buy traditional financial giants like Goldman Sachs and CME. At the rate of growth registered by FTC, the CEO believes this is not impossible.
Commenting further on the massive fundraising, the FTC CEO added:
“I’m incredibly humbled by the support we’ve gotten. It’s our first large fundraise, but through it we’ve formed a hugely valuable set of partners. I’m excited to work with them to make FTX the best company it can be. We started out as a new derivatives exchange two years ago, and this round will help us continue to build out a bigger and broader vision for what FTX could become.”
On the other hand, crypto exchange Binance has completely exited its position from FTX. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also confirmed the same. CZ said that the withdrawal was part of “a normal investment cycle”.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth from them, we’re very happy with that but we’ve exited completely. We’re still friends but we no longer have any equity relationship,” he added.
FTX has also entered some high-profile sports sponsorships this year to increase its market footprint. Earlier in March 2021, FTX secured 19-year naming rights to Miami Heat Arena.