Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX has raised a meme-friendly $420.69 million in a Series B1 funding round led by Singapore state investor Temasek.
The fundraising values FTX at $25 billion – an increase of 38.8 percent from July, when the company raised $900 million at $18 billion.
According to an announcement on Thursday, 69 investors participated in this round, including funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, via its Teachers’ Innovation Platform, Sequoia Capital, Sea Capital, IVP, ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
More Offerings
«We expect to make strategic investments designed to grow the business and expand our regulatory coverage,» Ramnik Arora, head of product at FTX, said in the statement, adding that the platform will explore adjacent market opportunities including equities, prediction markets, NFTs and videogame partnerships.
FTX’s user base has increased 48 percent over the past three months, with average trading volume is up 75 percent to about $14 billion per day in daily volume, the company said
New Headquarters
Before founding Alameda and then FTX, 29-year-old Bankman-Fried was a trader on Jane Street Capital’s international ETF desk. He traded a variety of ETFs, futures, currencies, and equities, and designed their automated OTC trading system.
FTX recently announced that it was moving its Hong Kong headquarters to the Bahamas, citing the island nation's friendlier regulation towards cryptocurrencies.
The company’s U.S.-affiliate also acquired digital currency futures and options exchange and clearinghouse LedgerX, and has recently launched a global NFT marketplace, FTX NFTs.
- Sam Bankman-Fried is a speaker at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021, of which finews.asia is an official media partner. Registration and details of the event, to be held on 8–12 November 2021, are available here.
