Institutional Investor Bulletin: FTX raises $900 million, Revolut $800 million, and OpenSea $100 million

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in investments in infrastructure and in the growing attention companies are giving to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most significant developments of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s overview.

FTX raises $900 million at an $18 billion valuation

FTX raised a record $900 million following a Series B funding round.

Investors include SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Sino Global Capital, Multicoin, Circle, Lightspeed, Third Point, as well as billionaires Alan Howard and Paul Tudor Jones. FTX was valued at $18 billion.

The funds will be deployed to expand global presence, improve products, pursue strategic investments, and develop White Label software to offer to traditional financial players seeking to enter the crypto industry.

Online bank Revolut raises $800 million at a $33 billion valuation

The British fintech Revolut raised $800 million in another funding round led by SoftBank (via Vision Fund 2) and Tiger Global Management.

The funds will be used for international expansion, product development, and marketing efforts.

Valuation after the deal puts Revolut at $33 billion, making it the UK’s most valuable fintech and the second most valuable in Europe.

Terra’s stablecoin developer raises $150 million

Terraform Labs raised $150 million from several major investors, including Arrington XRP Capital, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital and BlockTower Capital.

The $150 million commitment will be used for the Ecosystem Fund. Terraform Labs uses it to sponsor projects deployed on the Terra blockchain.

The company is known for issuing stablecoins pegged to various fiat currencies for the e-commerce sector. The startup is also behind Asia’s popular payment solution Chai.

NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation

The NFT marketplace OpenSea raised $100 million in a Series B funding round led by venture fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The deal valued the company at $1.5 billion.

Other investors include Coatue Management, Creative Artists Agency and its co-founder Michael Ovitz, as well as angel investors Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Durant, Sean Mendes and Kevin Hart.

The funds will be used to scale the platform, enable cross-chain interoperability, enter new markets, expand the team of specialists, and improve the user experience.

Block.one’s Bitcoin exchange to raise $75 million from SoftBank

SB Northstar, SoftBank’s Tokyo-based investment arm, will buy 7.5 million shares at $10 of the crypto exchange operator Bullish.

The trading platform will become a publicly listed company through a reverse merger with SPAC Far Peak Acquisition. The combined firm was valued at approximately $9 billion.

Bullish Global is a subsidiary of Block.one, the company behind the EOS project. In May 2021, the latter invested $10 billion in launching a Bitcoin exchange. The platform was slated to launch in 2021.

Titan raises $58 million to launch a crypto product

The Titan investment platform raised $58 million in a Series B round led by a16z. The company’s market capitalization reached $450 million.

Other investors include General Catalyst, BoxGroup, Sound Ventures of Ashton Kutcher, and a number of celebrities including Will Smith and Jared Leto.

The firm positions its product as the first investment platform that allows retail investors to entrust their capital to managers to execute one of several active-management strategies.

The funds will be used to launch a crypto service, develop the core platform, and expand the team.

CertiK, the smart-contract auditor, raises $37 million

The smart-contract security auditor CertiK raised $37 million in a Series B round led by hedge fund Coatue Management and venture firm Shunwei Capital.

Coinbase’s venture arm also joined as a lead investor. Since its founding in 2018 the startup has raised about $48 million in funding. It has been backed by Binance, IDG, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lenovo at various times.

The funds will be used to grow the headcount and scale the technology. In 2022 CertiK will double its workforce.

Ethereum interoperability project Connext raises $12 million from ConsenSys

The cross-chain interoperability project Connext raised $12 million from 1kx and ConsenSys-backed Mesh.

Funding came from 82 investors: Coinbase Ventures, OkEx Ventures, eGirl Capital, Hashed, and various angels, including Andre Cronje of yEarn.Finance and Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon.

The funds will be used to expand the team, further develop the Connext ecosystem through a grants program, and scale the network.

Phantom wallet on the Solana blockchain raises $9 million

The Solana-based cryptocurrency wallet Phantom raised $9 million in a Series A round led by a16z.

Participants in the funding round included Variant Fund, Jump Capital, Solana Foundation, early investor Coinbase’s Gary Tan, as well as several founders of crypto projects, including Robert Leshner, Antonio Juliano, Forrest Browning and Alex Adelman.

The funds will be used to expand to other networks, including Ethereum, and to develop scaling solutions.

DeFi project Superfluid Finance raises $9 million

The DeFi protocol Superfluid Finance, focused on recurring payments, raised $9 million in a seed round led by venture firm Multicoin Capital.

The startup was also backed by Semantic Ventures, DeFiance Capital, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Messari founder Ryan Selkis and other investors.

The funds will be used to grow the headcount and advance the proposed solutions. The project team will organise hackathons and launch a targeted grants program.

Zerion fintech startup raises $8.2 million from DCG and Lightspeed

The Zerion investment app raised $8.2 million in a Series A round led by European venture fund Mosaic Ventures with participation from Placeholder, DCG, Lightspeed, Blockchain.com Ventures and other investors.

The funds will be used to expand the team, accelerate product development, and roll out new features for users.

ClayStack staking protocol raises $5.2 million

The liquid staking service ClayStack raised $5.2 million in a seed round led by CoinFund and ParaFi Capital with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Solana Foundation and Animoca Brands.

The funds will be used to expand the team and further develop the protocol, with a launch expected in September.

Also on ForkLog:

• In 2021, crypto companies accounted for 3% of global venture investment activity.

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