Aptos, a blockchain startup founded by former Meta employees, announced a $150 million round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto on July 25. The round brought the startup’s total funds raised in 2022 alone to $350 million.
According to Bloomberg, the startup’s latest raise includes new investors such as Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, and Superscrypt. In March, FTX Ventures also joined Aptos’ funding round, which saw the blockchain developer raise $200 million from investors like a16z, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital.
FTX Ventures investment partner Ramnik Arora said that blockchain technology needs to prioritize scalability, safety, and ease of use to reach “the next billion users.”
The blockchain was founded by former Meta employees hoping to bring blockchain technology to a wider audience of “billions” of people. At present Aptos operates on a series of testnets, and its mainnet has yet to launch, although it is slated for later this year.
Aptos has now raised $350 million so far this year, which it plans to invest in the development of its safe and scalable Layer-1 blockchain.
CEO and co-founder Mo Shaikh said the latest funding round is an endorsement of the company’s work to date and shows the appetite for a “next generation Layer-1,” adding:
“We’ve known for a while that, due to issues like outages and downtime, current blockchains are not fit for purpose when it comes to mass Web3 adoption.”
This January, FTX has raised $400 million in a Series C funding round, valuing the company at $32 billion. FTX planned to use the capital for mergers, acquisitions, the development of new products, and to invest in companies in gaming, NFTs, and the metaverse. As CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told CoinDesk, FTX was planning acquisitions and partnerships to enter more countries and grow its user base.
Image Source: https://twitter.com/aptoslabs