Aptos Labs Raises $150 Million in Series A Round Led by FTX Ventures

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.

The company itself was launched by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, who were involved in Mark Zuckerberg’s failed Diem project.

At the start of this year, the Diem Association, formerly known as Libra, officially shut down its stablecoin project amid intense regulatory scrutiny. Diem later announced that it will be selling its intellectual property and other assets to Silvergate for $200 million. The California bank, which serves blockchain companies, had partnered with Diem last year to launch a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin.

Overall, Aptos Labs has raised a total of $350 million in funding this year over two rounds.