Two-year-old cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced a Series B extension round of $420 million at a $25 billion valuation. This follows a $1 billion Series B fundraise in July at an $18 billion capitalization.
Today’s round involved 69 investors, including Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
Temasek was also a late addition to the earlier Series B round, which rose from an initially announced $900 million to a billion.
Since July, the company says its user base has grown 48% and its average trade volume by 75%, averaging $14 billion daily.
A key feature of FTX is its significant volumes of derivatives trades. It traded $20 billion in derivatives in the past 24 hours compared to almost $5 billion on the spot market, according to CoinGecko. It ranks as the fourth largest spot crypto exchange but second in derivatives. Market leader Binance transacts more than five times its volumes in both markets.
Both exchanges have focused on derivatives trading outside the U.S. because of regulations. However, since its last funding, FTX.US acquired a U.S. regulated futures & options exchange and clearinghouse, LedgerX.
To put FTX’s valuation in context, Nasdaq-listed Coinbase currently has a market capitalization of $82 billion. In the last 24 hours, Coinbase’s spot volumes were 50% more than FTX, but Coinbase is not yet active in derivatives.
Meanwhile, FTX has recently shifted its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas. It also just launched an NFT marketplace, and is very active in sports sponsorship.
