FTX Trading, a fast-growing digital asset platform, has raised $425 million in a Series B-1 at a $25 billion valuation according to a company release.
69 investors participated in the round which included Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, via its Teachers’ Innovation Platform, Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Sea Capital, IVP, ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
FTX added that Temasek had participated in the previously announced Series B, and updated the total amount of that raise from $900 million to $1 billion.
FTX said it has grown significantly since its initial $1 Billion Series B round back in July 2021. FTX’s user base has reportedly grown 48% and its average trade volume has increased by 75%. Daily trading volume now averages a whopping $14 billion per day.
FTX has recently established its global headquarters in the Bahamas and secured licenses under new regulatory frameworks in the Bahamas and Gibraltar.
Additionally, the Company’s US affiliate, FTX US, acquired CFTC regulated digital currency futures & options exchange and clearinghouse, LedgerX, and has recently launched a global NFT marketplace, FTX NFTs.
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, issued the following comment:
“We founded FTX two years ago with the idea of creating a better financial marketplace. Today we are focused on establishing FTX as a trustworthy and innovative exchange by regularly engaging with regulators around the world, and constantly seeking opportunities to enhance our offerings for digital asset investors. For this round, we capitalized on those strides and were able to partner with investors that prioritize positioning FTX as the world’s most transparent and compliant cryptocurrency exchange.”
Ramnik Arora, Head of Product at FTX., said they expect to make strategic investments designed to grow their business and expand their regulatory coverage.
Divesh Makan, Founding Partner at ICONIQ, said that FTX is creating a modern financial system:
“We admire Sam and the FTX team’s laser focus on product and user experience which we believe has been core to FTX’s success as a leading global crypto exchange. We are thrilled to partner with them as they leverage their underlying infrastructure to expand into broader financial services and become the exchange of everything.”
FTX is a crypto exchange built for traders. It offers products like derivatives, options and volatility products, tokenized stocks, prediction markets, leveraged tokens and an OTC desk. Parts of FTX are not available to US investors due to the lack of clarity in regulation.
