Aptos Labs raises $150M, more than doubling valuation

Layer-1 blockchain developer Aptos Labs has closed a $150 million funding round to further its ambitions in the Web3 space, further highlighting venture capital’s appetite for budding crypto-focused startups.

The funding round was co-led by venture studios FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Franklin Templeton and Circle Ventures. According to Bloomberg, the funding round more than doubled the startup’s valuation, which was over $1 billion as of March.

Aptos was launched by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching. The founders also had a role in advancing Mark Zuckerberg’s failed Diem project. As Cointelegraph reported, the Diem Association and its subsidiaries wound down operations in February of this year, with Meta moving to sell the project’s intellectual property and other assets.

At a glance the $14.67 billion invested in Q2 is no big change from the $14.66 invested in Q1 but in reality #Web3 and #Metaverse investments took over #DeFi.
Visit #ResearchTerminal to get the full picture: https://t.co/JQpGeVmpRM @Cointelegraph pic.twitter.com/S41fhAG70y
— Cointelegraph Research (@CointelegraphCS) July 18, 2022

As Bloomberg reported, Aptos’ blockchain uses Diem’s programming language, called Move, which reportedly makes transactions cheaper and more efficient. Mysten Labs, another blockchain project to emerge from the ashes of Diem, also utilizes the Move programming language. Mysten Labs closed a $36 million funding round in December 2021.

Although the so-called crypto winter is upon us, venture capital continues to make strategic investments across the blockchain and crypto industries. According to Cointelegraph Research, venture firms invested $14.67 billion into the sector in the second quarter, basically matching first-quarter commitments. Web3, a broad concept that describes the next iteration of the blockchain-powered internet, attracted the most interest.