invezz.com
Aptos Labs, a startup founded by former employees of Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), has raised $150 million from investors in a Series A funding round, according to an announcement published on Monday.
The funding follows the startup’s last round that netted $200 million from leading investors across the crypto and blockchain space, to bring its total funding to date to $350 million.
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According to Aptos, the latest strategic support came from participants across the key verticals within the blockchain technology industry. These include gaming, social networks, media & entertainment, and finance.
Specifically, the funding round was led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto while new investors included Apollo, Circle Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, and Temasek’s Superscrypt.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Multicoin also contributed as returning investors.
Aptos Labs founded by Ex-Meta employees
The Palo Alto, California-based platform was co-founded in 2021 by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, two former Meta Platforms staff that worked on the company’s failed crypto projects Diem and Novi.
Other than the two co-founders, Aptos Labs counts several of the talent group on the discontinued projects as part of its team – a core group of individuals that “battle-tested” the technology for more than three years.
The crypto startup has also incorporated top minds from researchers behind multiple cutting-edge industry innovations and the Move language.
“We are taking this as an opportunity to build the reliable foundation Web3 has been waiting for,” Aptos co-founders Shaikh and Ching said in the press release.
The funds will help the startup add to its staff as it looks to build a scalable and upgradable blockchain that will help drive the next phase of Web3 growth and adoption.