By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 19th, 2024
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said that he shall be using these funds for expanding the global reach. In less than eight months, FTX has raised a staggering $1.8 billion with company valuations growing 2x.
The recent slowdown in the overall crypto market seems to affect crypto exchange FTX the least. On Monday, January 31, crypto exchange FTX announced raising a staggering $400 million in the Series C funding round.
The latest funding round now values the firm at a staggering $32 billion. FTX has grown twice in size in terms of valuations just over the last eight months. In July 2021, the crypto trading platform raised $900 million in Series B at valuations of $18 billion. Later in October 2021, it raised another $400 million in Series B1 funding at $25 billion valuations.
Thus, with the latest Series C funding, FTX has raised a total of $1.8 billion just over the last six months. During the latest funding round, some of the top fund houses participated including Temasek, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tiger Global, Insight Partners, and others. Speaking of this development, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said:
“Our Series C financing round represents a milestone achievement for FTX, as we raised close to $2 billion in six months. This round will support our continued mission of delivering innovative products and services to the marketplace as well as expanding our global reach with additional licenses around the world. With the ongoing support from our dedicated investors and userbase, FTX will look to continue interacting with regulators to facilitate access to digital assets in a safe and compliant manner. We look forward to working alongside our investors to achieve our mission and continue our tremendous growth throughout 2022 and beyond.”
The Rise of FTX
Crypto exchange FTX has witnessed very swift growth off lately while offering tough competition to giants like Coinbase. FTX has emerged as one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges offering derivative products and spot trading facilities.
Interestingly, FTX’s growth comes despite the fact that it doesn’t offer trading services in the US. However, it operates with a separate entity aka FTX US. Last week itself, FTX US announced a $400 million investment valuing the firm to $8 billion.
The recent announcement comes despite the fact that the crypto market has entered heavy correction since the beginning of 2022. But FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried says that he doesn’t expect it to be a prolonged bear market. Speaking to CNBC, he added:
“I think we’re not entering a long term crypto winter. There have been changes in expectations of interest rates, and that’s been moving crypto markets. But it’s been moving markets more generally as well.”
He also added that the chances for an initial public offering are not on the horizon as of now. “I’m not sure whether we will. I could see it happening, I could see it not happening. We don’t feel like we have any particular need to do it,” said he.