Paul Erlanger and Se Yong Park, co-founders of consumer cryptocurrency trading app Fomo, have taken an unconventional approach to raising capital, and it’s paying off.
Their app launched in May and just announced a $17 million benchmark-led Series A round (an unusual crypto bet for a top VC firm), bringing total funding to $19 million.
Instead of a classic seed round, the founders created a list of 200 people they dreamed of having as angel investors.
“We knew that in this business, every person is valuable to us,” Erlanger told TechCrunch.
They then tapped into their network for a warm intro. Both previously worked at the popular cryptocurrency trading platform dYdX. Failing that, they made cold calls. And 140 of their dream angels heard their pitch and wrote a check.
They have acquired some of the biggest names in the crypto world, including Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, co-founder Solana Raj Gokal, and former Coinbase CTO and super angel Balaji Srinivasan, the founders said.
“There are a lot of people like Elon Musk that we couldn’t reach,” Park said with a laugh, adding that less than a handful of people who answered the phone said no.
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The Angels liked the idea of a super app that would allow consumers to access all the crypto assets ever available on any blockchain (in the millions). They promise there will be no technical friction. The app also has a built-in social component, allowing users to follow friends and leaders they respect to see their trades.
Fomo does not yet have all assets on all available blockchains, but founders said they are on track to reach that goal within six months. And of the millions of assets they currently offer, users can trade everything from major coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana to meme coins and altcoins.
The ultimate vision is to one day allow consumers to trade all types of assets on the app, from prediction markets to standard securities such as bonds.
A month after Fomo’s May launch, its founders added a feature that dramatically changed the company’s trajectory: support for Apple Pay. This essentially allows users to download the app and start trading immediately.
“We’ve had a huge influx of users and revenue,” Erlanger said. According to its founders, Fomo quickly reached approximately $150,000 in weekly revenue and $3 million in daily trading volume.
The app collects a transaction fee of 0.50% per transaction (transactions on Solana have a minimum fee of $0.95, while other cheaper blockchains such as Base and BNB Chain have no minimum fee). However, users do not have to pay so-called “gas fees,” or fees charged by blockchains to process transactions. This will be a real selling point for users interested in owning major coins, Park said.
Their Many Angels strategy worked. That’s because not one, but three people offered introductions to Chetan Puttagunta, an early-stage investor at Benchmark, Puttagunta told TechCrunch.
Puttagunta was a strong choice as the lead investor for the Series A round that Erlanger and Park were actively pursuing. Benchmark does not invest in crypto startups selectively. The company supported Chainaracy in 2018 along with Toncoin and several other companies.
But when Putagunta (who has backed companies like Elastic, Cursor, Manus, and LangChain) saw Fomo’s rapid growth, he was convinced to take a chance and take a seat on the board.
“Paul, Cee, and the entire team have a clear vision to make crypto assets easier to discover and trade,” Puttagunta said. “It is clear that their vision has seen truly extraordinary growth since their launch a few months ago.”
Benchmarking was the only organizational check the founders underwent, with the remaining rounds given to existing angels and new angels.
For now, it looks like the benchmark bet may pay off. Since the round closed in September, Fomo has added more assets from more blockchains to its app, and growth has accelerated even further. The founders say they have hired more than 120,000 users to date. “Right now, we’re doing about $20 million to $40 million in sales per day and about $150,000 in revenue per day,” Erlanger said.
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