Aptos closes $150 million round led by FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto

Aptos, a blockchain startup founded by former Meta employees, this morning announced a $150 million round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto.  

The startup's latest raise includes new investors such as Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures and Superscrypt, according to a press release. FTX Ventures previously joined Aptos’ funding round in March, 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 prioritise 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.” He added:  “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.”