Crypto exchange FTX raises $400M in funding, valuing the 3-year-old tech startup at $32 billion
Nickie Louise
Posted On February 1, 2022
Just last week, we wrote about FTX U.S., the American affiliate of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, after the company raised $400 million in its first external funding round from high-profile investors including Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. The Series A funding round gives FTX U.S. a valuation of $8 billion, placing it among the world’s most valuable private crypto firms.
Today, the parent company of FTX U.S., FTX, announced it has raised $400 million in a new round of funding. The deal gives the crypto exchange startup an eye-popping valuation of $32 billion, up from $25 billion in October 2021 when we covered the company.
Founded in 2019 by 29-year-old MIT graduate Sam Bankman-Fried and his co-founder Gary Wang, the Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX offers derivatives products like futures and options as well as spot trading. Once an unknown startup, FTX has become a key player in the crypto space, rivaling the likes of Coinbase and Binance.
FTX CEO Bankman-Fried, who currently resides in Hong Kong, is now worth $22.5 billion making him the richest person in crypto, according to Forbes. Sam graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013 at the age of 21. He was skilled in math and loved to solve problems and give back to society.
With $2 billion in total funding since its inception three years ago, FTX has built up a war chest at a time when digital currency prices have sunk considerably. However, Bankman-Fried doesn’t think we’re entering a “long-term crypto winter.”
In an interview with CNBC, Bankman-Fried said, “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.”
In 2020, Bankman-Fried made headlines after he donated a whopping $5.2 million to Joe Biden’s campaign, making him the second-biggest donor. Today, Sam is a celebrity in crypto circles. FTX specializes in derivatives and trading on leverage, the use of borrowed funds to amplify trades.
We covered FTX US’s parent company back in October 2021 after the 4-year-old cryptocurrency derivatives exchange platform raised $420M in funding at a $25 billion valuation.
