The monster round valued FTX at $18 billion.

FTX, the crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried in May 2019, has written up the history books with its Series B raise of $900 million at a valuation of $18 billion. A clutch of top-notch investors participated in the funding, reflecting the demand for promising opportunities in the crypto space, despite recent volatility in the price of bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency. (FT)

Over 60 investors participated in the funding, including Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Thoma Bravo, SoftBank, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Third Point, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Altimeter, BOND, NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Willoughby Capital, 40North, Senator Investment Group, Sino Global Capital, Multicoin, the Paul Tudor Jones family, Izzy Englander, Alan Howard, VanEck, Hudson River Trading, and Circle.

Use of funds

The company intends to use the financing to expand its partnerships for its FTX Pay, FTX Liquidity program & FTX NFT business lines. It will also further develop its products and for “strategic investments.”

“We started out as a new derivatives exchange two years ago, and this round will help us continue to build out a bigger and broader vision for what FTX could become,” said founder Bankman-Fried, who is also CEO.

FTX said its revenues grew over 10-fold this year and 75x since its Series A funding round closed in mid 2020.

According to FT, which quoted a company spokesperson, FTX now earns an annualized revenue of nearly $1 billion.

Currently, the crypto exchange averages $10 billion of trading volume daily and has over a million users. It is now reckoned as one of the leading digital exchanges in the world.

Key comments from investors

• [FTX] are now leveraging the unique capabilities of global crypto rails to build the future of internet native finance – they are building the future of crypto. – Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin
• Sam and the FTX team have successfully built the most cutting-edge, sophisticated cryptocurrency exchange in the world. – Orlando Bravo, founder and managing partner at Thoma Bravo
• As crypto becomes more ubiquitous, FTX has the opportunity to build a next generation financial services brand, spanning exchange, payments, and many other categories to come. – Nick Shalek, General Partner at Ribbit Capital
• Crypto has the potential to disrupt our global financial system, and we believe FTX will be core to this theme for years to come. – Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners

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