Why Benchmark Made A Rare Crypto Bet On Trading App fomo, With $17m Series A 

Paul Erlanger and Se Yong Park, co-founders of consumer crypto trading app Fomo, took an different way to raising superior that is paying disconnected for them.

Their app launched successful May and they conscionable announced a $17 cardinal Series A information led by Benchmark — an atypical crypto stake for nan top-tier VC patient — bringing full funding to $19 million. 

Instead of a classical seed round, nan founders drew up a database of 200 people they dreamed of having as angel investors. 

“We knew that each azygous personification would beryllium valuable to america successful nan business,” Erlanger told TechCrunch. 

Then they worked their networks for lukewarm intros— some had previously worked at the popular crypto trading level dYdX. Failing that, they made acold calls. And 140 of their dream angels wrote checks aft proceeding their pitch.

They landed specified large names successful nan crypto world arsenic Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron; co-founder of Solana, Raj Gokal; and erstwhile Coinbase CTO and super-angel Balaji Srinivasan, the founders said.

“There’s a batch of group we ne'er sewage to, for illustration Elon Musk,” Park said pinch a grin, but of nan ones who did return their call, little than a fistful said no, he said. 

The angels liked their thought of a ace app that gives consumers entree to every crypto asset ever (millions of them), available connected immoderate blockchain, with, they promise, no method friction. The app besides has a social component baked into it, wherever users tin follow friends and leaders they respect to see their trades. 

While Fomo doesn’t yet person each plus from each blockchain available, nan founders said they are on way to be adjacent to that extremity successful six months. And among nan millions of assets they do connection today, users tin waste and acquisition everything from major coins for illustration Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana to meme coins and altcoins, they say.  

The eventual imagination is to 1 day allow consumers to waste and acquisition each kinds of different assets connected nan app, from prediction markets to standard securities like bonds. 

A month after Fomo’s May launch, the founders added a characteristic that dramatically changed their company’s trajectory: support for Apple Pay. This fundamentally fto users download nan app and quickly commencement trading. 

“We saw a monolithic influx of users and revenue,” Erlanger said. Fomo instantly soared to about $150,000 in gross per week and $3 million in volume a day, nan founders said. 

The app collects transaction fees connected each waste and acquisition of 0.50% (with a minimum interest of $0.95 for transactions connected Solana, and nary minimum interest connected other, less-expensive blockchains for illustration Base and BNB Chain). But it doesn’t make users salary alleged “gas fees,” aliases the fees blockchains charge to process transactions. That’s a existent trading constituent for users willing successful holding nan awesome coins, Park said. 

Their many-angels strategy paid disconnected because not 1 but three group reached retired to Benchmark early-stage investor Chetan Puttagunta to connection an introduction, Puttagunta told TechCrunch. 

Puttagunta was a long-shot prime for a lead investor of nan Series A round that Erlanger and Park were actively pursuing. Benchmark is selective with its picks and doesn’t invest overmuch successful crypto startups. It backed Chainalysis in 2018, on with Toncoin and a fewer others.  

But Puttagunta (who’s backed such companies as Elastic, Cursor, Manus and LangChain) saw Fomo’s accelerated maturation and was convinced to return a chance, and a committee seat.  

“Paul and Se and nan full squad person a clear imagination to make crypto assets some easy to observe and trade,” Puttagunta said. “Their imagination is intelligibly resonating pinch genuinely exceptional maturation since they launched a fewer months ago.”  

Benchmark was nan only organization cheque nan founders took, pinch nan remainder of nan information going to existing angels and caller ones.

So far, it looks for illustration Benchmark’s stake could salary off. Since nan information closed successful September, Fomo has added much assets from much blockchains to its app and has seen maturation spell moreover crazier. The founders opportunity they person onboarded complete 120,000 users. “We’re now doing astir $20-$40 cardinal successful measurement a day, and astir $150,000 successful gross a day,” Erlanger said.