Top VC strikes again, betting on the crypto trading app fomo.

Original title: "Prospecting Manual: Why Top VC Benchmark Focuses on fomo?"

This article was initially published on November 14, 2025

Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News

Updated on June 23, 2026:

The capital narrative of fomo has moved forward again. On June 22, 2026, fomo announced the completion of $75 million in Series B financing, led by Index Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures (USV), and Benchmark continuing to increase its stake. Investors also include Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz, among others. According to Forbes magazine, fomo's post-financing valuation reached $550 million.

Index Ventures has previously bet on high-growth tech companies such as Figma and Scale AI, and has also invested in stablecoin infrastructure Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in 2025; USV is one of the long-term capital behind crypto and internet network projects such as Coinbase, Polygon, and Matter Labs. The entry of these two traditional top VCs allows fomo to be further examined within the narrative of consumer finance and on-chain asset entry, shifting from a crypto-native trading application.

Data is also rising synchronously. According to fomo’s official disclosure, since its launch one year ago, over 625,000 people have joined fomo, with a total trading volume exceeding $4 billion and producing over 110 million independent social interactions. Additionally, more than 68,000 users made their first cryptocurrency purchase on fomo using Apple Pay (totaling $25 million).

On the product front, fomo launched its perpetual contract feature in June, supported by Hyperliquid and TradeXYZ, covering perpetual contract trading for stocks, Pre-IPO, crypto assets, indices, and commodities. In other words, fomo is expanding from a minimalist on-chain trading app to a broader global trading network.

Original text:

In the past few years, the crypto industry has made tremendous progress at the infrastructure level. However, truly consumer-grade crypto applications have always failed to break through the barriers. The separation of different blockchain ecosystems, complex wallet operations, and gas fees remain experiential problems that ordinary users face, becoming the last shortcoming hindering large-scale adoption.

Meanwhile, the social crypto trading app fomo, which emerged in 2025, is attempting to rewrite the game rules by "breaking the technical barriers of crypto trading" with an extremely simple experience, attracting over 140 top angel investors in the industry and obtaining a cautious $17 million Series A investment led by top VC Benchmark, becoming one of the most watched dark horse applications in the annual crypto track.

Team Background: The "Dimensional Reduction Attack" of Crypto Veterans

fomo's core positioning is "a social crypto trading mobile application built for everyone," and its product design revolves around two core principles: "eliminating technical friction" and "enhancing user connection," attempting to break the backward user experience status quo in the crypto industry.

fomo co-founders Paul Erlanger and Se Yong Park previously worked together at the crypto derivatives trading platform dYdX. Team members come from dYdX, Uniswap, OpenSea, Square, Two Sigma, and cover multiple fields including DeFi, NFT ecology, and traditional fintech. This "cross-domain + strong collaboration" team gene has become the key to fomo's rapid breakthrough.

Financing Path

fomo's financing path is not conventional, but it precisely hit the core of capital and resources. fomo did not follow the traditional "seed round → A round" rhythm, but first built the most luxurious early supporter network in the crypto industry through an "angel investor list" strategy, then attracted Benchmark's "rare bet."

In February 2025, fomo completed a $2 million angel pre-seed round financing, supported by over 140 angel investors, covering three core groups of builders, operators, and traders in the crypto ecosystem: including Solana co-founder Raj Gokal, Polygon CEO Marc Boiron, Balaji Srinivasan, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino, Berachain CEO Smokey Bera, Sei co-founder Jeffrey Feng, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, Privy CEO Henri Stern, Kaito CEO Yu Hu, Pantera managing partner Paul Veradittakit, Dragonfly partner Rob Hadick, among others.

This angel investor list includes core forces from the multi-chain ecosystem that can provide critical support for fomo's cross-chain technology docking; it also includes leading traders, who are not only early users of the product but also helped fomo optimize the design of trading experiences and social features.

fomo's founder revealed to TechCrunch that the team initially listed 200 people on the "dream investor list," and through referrals and direct communication, only a very few refused—this "high conversion rate" reflects investors' recognition of the direction of "simplifying crypto trading."

In November 2025, fomo secured another $17 million Series A funding, led by Benchmark. Benchmark is a venture capital firm with a legendary background, with its portfolio including world-changing consumer-grade products like Uber, Snapchat, Instagram, and X. Benchmark has always been cautious in investing in consumer crypto applications—since 2018, the company has made only a handful of investments in crypto startups, having only invested in a few projects in Web3 such as Chainalysis, Toncoin, and Web3 social protocol Towns.

Benchmark partner Chetan Puttagunta stated in an interview with TechCrunch that he was attracted by fomo's "clear vision" and "truly outstanding growth." He pointed out that three people actively recommended fomo to him. After learning about fomo's growth and clear vision, Chetan Puttagunta also joined fomo's board.

In this round, apart from Benchmark, other angel investors include Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz, Moonpay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright, Zora CEO Jacob Horne, etc.

Product Highlights: The Crypto Super App of "Cross-Chain + Social"

fomo's operational process is designed to be extremely simple, allowing cross-chain use with the same balance, one-click purchase of any asset, no need for new wallets, no cross-chain transactions, no gas fees, making it possible for even users with no crypto experience to complete transactions quickly.

• Multi-chain asset coverage: Currently supports mainstream blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Base, and BNB Chain, offering millions of asset trading from mainstream coins (like BTC, ETH) to meme coins and altcoins; the founder promises to achieve "coverage of nearly all blockchain assets" in the next six months, allowing users to avoid switching between multiple wallets and exchanges;
• Supports direct purchases via Apple Pay: After downloading the app, users can complete registration with Google or Apple ID, without the need to create complex mnemonic phrases, and can deposit through direct cryptocurrency transfers, Apple Pay, or Debit Card.

• No gas: Users face 0 gas fees.
• Transaction fees: The transaction fee is uniform at 0.50%, with a minimum fee of $0.95 set only for the Solana network, while low-cost chains like Base and BNB Chain have no minimum fee.
• Social discovery: fomo also has built-in social features, allowing users to follow KOLs, traders, or friends, and view their transaction records in real-time (such as buying/selling an asset, changes in holdings), as well as explore "hot assets," "trend trades," and "top trader rankings" to quickly capture market opportunities.

fomo's ultimate goal is not limited to cryptocurrency. fomo founder Paul Erlanger told TechCrunch that it plans to gradually expand asset categories to include traditional securities like prediction markets and bonds.

How is fomo's data performance?

Since the beta version launched in May 2025, fomo's user and transaction data has shown "exponential growth," validating the feasibility of its product model:

Source: Dune

Transaction volume: According to Dune data, as of the time of writing, fomo's total trading volume is approaching $850 million, generating $2.47 million in fees.

User scale: When disclosing the Series A financing, fomo stated that its user base has been continuously growing by nearly 10% weekly. fomo has attracted over 120,000 users and 35,000 traders, among which nearly 15,000 users are new to cryptocurrency (registered via Apple Pay). Dune data shows that over 30,000 users have executed more than one transaction on the fomo platform.

In industry comparison, in the Solana Bot track over the past two months, fomo's transaction volume market share reached 5.5%, ranking sixth.

Source: Dune

What are the interaction methods?

fomo's interaction strategy's core is trading. It is unclear whether invitations will count toward the leaderboard, but inviting others can earn 25% of the fees from the referred individuals.

Currently, fomo has launched a leaderboard feature within its mobile app, and after attempting two trades of small assets, I have entered the ranking at over 12,000.

Conclusion

When the crypto infrastructure matures sufficiently, whoever can lower the user threshold will capture the next wave of growth.

fomo's core value is to solve the crypto industry's "last mile" problem—focusing on optimizing user experience, which perfectly aligns with the core demand for the large-scale popularity of consumer-grade crypto applications.

Meanwhile, the angel investment lineup of hundreds of angel investors and the inclusion of Benchmark mark an industry consensus where institutional capital begins to re-evaluate the long-term value of consumer-grade crypto applications.

From a product perspective, fomo is redefining the standards of "good trading applications": not by piling up features, but by achieving extreme simplicity; not as an isolated trading tool, but as a socialized financial network.

According to official plans, fomo intends to support almost all mainstream blockchain assets within six months and eventually expand to prediction markets and traditional securities. Whether fomo has the potential to become a bridge connecting the crypto world and traditional finance is worth continued observation.