Antigua and Barbuda-based cryptocurrency trading platform, FTX trading Limited, has closed a US$900- million fund-raising round, describing it as “historic”.

FTX Trading, which is owner and operator of FTX.COM, announced the series B fund-raisers, valuing the Company at US$18 billion.

Management said the new financing round “will expand FTX’s global presence, accelerate the company’s growth, and represents one of the largest raises for a crypto company.

Over 60 investors participated in the $900-million series B, including Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Thoma Bravo, SoftBank, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Third Point, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Altimeter, BOND, NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Willoughby Capital, 40North, Senator Investment Group, Sino Global Capital, Multicoin, the Paul Tudor Jones family, Izzy Englander, Alan Howard, VanEck, Hudson River Trading, and Circle.

Since its launch in May 2019, management pointed out that company revenues have increased over ten-fold this year and 75 times since its series A funding round closed in mid-2020.

The exchange has over 1 million users and averages over $10 billion of daily trading volume. The platform serves the entire chain of cryptocurrency trading participants from retail and crypto-native investors, to sophisticated day traders, family offices, and experienced institutional traders.

Management said that the funds will allow FTX to further expand its product offerings and user base. They outlined, “The Company will leverage the funds to further enhance its offerings and make strategic investments designed to grow the business. The Company will also look to further expand the network of partnerships it has for its FTX Pay, FTX Liquidity programme and FTX NFT business lines as it looks to expand its presence and drive further growth.”

The investment process was led by the company’s own ventures team, with help from Paradigm, Ribbit, and BTIG.

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, commented : “I’m incredibly humbled by the support we’ve gotten. It’s our first large fund-raise, but through it we’ve formed a hugely valuable set of partners. I’m excited to work with them to make FTX the best company it can be. We started out as a new derivatives exchange two years ago, and this round will help us continue to build out a bigger and broader vision for what FTX could become.”