FTX Raises $420M in Series B-1 Raise

Brooks Butler

Oct. 21, 2021

The successful funding round follows a $900 million raise earlier this year.

Photo: Lam Yik/Bloomberg

Key Takeaways

FTX has been valued at $25 billion in its most recent funding round, with $420 million raised.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has suggested that the money may be used for major acquisitions and hinted at the possibility of an ETF.
FTX continues to distinguish itself as a rising competitor to Coinbase and Binance.

FTX, a top-ten global crypto exchange, has raised just north of $420 million in its latest funding round. This comes on the heels of a $900 million raise in July.

FTX Deepens its Pockets

FTX, one of the world’s top crypto exchanges, has secured over $420 million in a Series B-1 raise at a $25 billion valuation. Only three months ago, FTX secured $900 million in a Series B raise that valued FTX at $18 billion. The funding round that was announced today included 69 different investors, spanning from major investment firms to individual billionaires to Singapore’s government-owned investment firm Temasek.

FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, allegedly the world’s richest person under 30 years old, has mentioned several possible uses for the money, including navigating the regulatory requirements in order to operate in New York next year, as well as the possibility of FTX’s own ETF. He also has plans for more acquisitions, including some “moderate to big ones.”

While trading volume increased by 75% since the $900 million raise, FTX is still rather small compared to its largest rivals, Coinbase and Binance. For example, FTX’s 24-hour trading volume is just shy of $5 billion versus Coinbase’s $7.3 billion, and it has a daily volume of roughly 6-7x less than Binance.

The competition concerns more than simple trading volume, however. Ten days ago, FTX U.S. launched its NFT marketplace on Solana. The very next day, Coinbase announced its own NFT marketplace, which has already attracted millions of sign-ups to its waitlist. Moreover, the two firms are competing in the realm of real-world sports: FTX was announced as the MLB’s official crypto partner in June, and only two days ago Coinbase was announced as the official crypto platform of the NBA.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, the author of this piece held BTC, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.

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