FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, recently raised a record-breaking $900 million in its latest round of funding, taking the company’s value to $18 billion. It proved that the recent dip in Bitcoin didn’t seem to faze the investors from participating in the crypto-asset industry.
The series B funding round boasted over 60 investors including some of the biggest firms such as the Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group., Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital, venture-capital firm Ribbit Capital, hedge fund Third Point, Senator Investment Group, and others.
The funding round was led by the company itself, so there weren’t any lead investors in the process. Founder and CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried said in an interview:
“There are two main goals of the raise. One of them is just forming a lot of partnerships with people who we are really excited about and who we think can help grow our business and make a lot of connections for us. And the second piece is having more capital for M&A.”
The transactions led the company to become one of the highest valued cryptocurrency companies in the world. The company poured a considerable amount of money to advertise its brand. They recently signed a multi-million sponsorship deal with the NBA team ‘Miami Heat’.
Bankman-Fried revealed that they will use the funds raised for new products in both the US and Internationally. He also said that the company is not in a rush to go public, however, going public is still an important factor. He said:
“We’re still trying to get ourselves in a position where we could go public relatively quickly if we wanted to. But that doesn’t mean we think that now is the time to do it. Instead, we basically want to have that option if it does seem right, without having any immediate plans to actually take advantage of that.”
