Key Insights:
- The Series A round was co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz.
- Aptos Labs was launched by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching.
- The funds will be used to accelerate the firm’s ventures into the Web3 space.
Aptos Labs, a Layer 1 blockchain start-up made up of former Meta employees, has raised $150 million in a new funding round led by Jump Crypto and the venture capital arm of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, FTX Ventures.
The Series A round has more than doubled the start-up’s previous valuation, which was over $1 billion in March this year. However, the company has declined to specify its new valuation.
Series A Round
The funding round was co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures and Superscrypt. Aptos Labs also continues to receive backing from a16z and Multicoin.
The funds will be used to accelerate the firm’s ventures into the Web3 space as it seeks to determine the demands of the market through collaboration with strategic partners.
The round highlights venture capital’s appetite for budding crypto-focused start-ups despite a downturn in the market. In fact, as of July 14, year-to-date venture capital investments in the crypto and blockchain industries amounts to $17.9 billion, according to JP Morgan.
While the $7.9 billion that global VCs invested in crypto start-ups in the second quarter of this year fell from $9.8 billion in the first quarter, it still represents more than the investments in all of 2020, when crypto start-ups saw $6.5 billion flow in.
Corresponding research from Cointelegraph suggests that venture firms invested $14.67 billion into the sector in the second quarter of this year, matching first-quarter commitments.
All in all, it seems that big money VCs remain bullish on crypto and blockchain start-ups, with this latest funding round being an indicator of such a sentiment.
